Encounters Magazine 10

This publication copyright 2014 by Black Matrix Publishing LLC and individually copyrighted by artists and individuals who have contributed to this issue. All stories in this magazine are fiction. Names, characters and places are products of the authors' imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance of the characters to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Encounters Magazine is published bi-monthly by Black Matrix Publishing LLC, 1339 Marcy Loop Rd, Grants Pass, OR 97527. Our Web site: www.blackmatrixpub.com

ABOUT OUR COVER ARTIST Joshua L. Hood lives in Boise, Idaho and has been pursuing illustration and writing for many years as a hobby. Earlier in 2012 he decided to try his hand at getting published. He has self-published an anthology of weird short stories entitled "Melting People" and has received numerous honorable mentions for both writing and publishing. His first industry published short story "Return Trip" is slated to be published later this year.

If you're interested in finding a talented artist for an upcoming project, visit Joshua at his Web site: http://joshualhood.com/

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE Volume 02 January/February 2014 Issue 10 Table of Contents SUN AND POISON by Zachary Woodard – Page 5 STORAGE CYLINDERS by Brandon Crilly – Page 22 CREEPTOWN by D.M. Anderson – Page 38 TARGET PRACTICE by Geoff Nelder – Page 68 THE BORGIA KISS by Kurt Heinrich Hyatt – Page 87 CORRECTION PROTOCOL by Edward J. McFadden III – Page 108 RECOMMENDED READING – Page 120 BOOK LIST – Page 122

PUBLISHER: Kim Kenyon EDITOR: Guy Kenyon

From the Editor's Desk Welcome to issue #10 of Encounters. We have added a couple of new things to this issue, a Recommended Reading segment and the Book List. They aren't fully implemented the way we want yet, but we were able to include the first segments in this issue. Look for expanded content in both as the new year progresses.

Meanwhile, we hope you enjoy the great short fiction we have lined up for you in this issue, and we'll see you again in February.

Guy Kenyon Encounters Magazine 11/03/2013

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SUN AND POISON

by Zachary Woodard

Today I am digging a ditch. When it is finished, it will

—hopefully—be approximately six feet deep and two feet wide. I cannot tell exactly, though, as I've only my boots for measurement. I make a mental note of it—to look for a tape measure the next time I'm in the heart of the city. I try to remember if I know where a hardware store might be, but for the life of me I can't remember. I know there is one, somewhere—on Bouverie Street?

I’ve decided, after much deliberation, to begin the ditch immediately behind the sidewalk in front of the Museum, about halfway between the front wall of the building and the fencing I’ve put up along the sidewalk.

The Grainger Museum was a blessing, and I thank God for it. The small, squat stone building is far enough away from the center of the city as to provide some safety, while still close enough that I can make sorties into it when I need to. Recently under construction, still rife with unused bricks and chain­link fencing which I was able to recycle into barricades, it was more than I could have asked for under the circumstances. But it is not, of course, ideal.

Ideally I wouldn’t be here in the first place. Ideally I would at least have the manpower and resources to take hold of Queens College, reinforce it, and maybe even grow a real garden. Get some chickens from Queen Vic Market. That would have been ideal. But things rarely work out ideally.

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Still, though. More than I could have hoped for. Given the circumstances.

I had formed a lot of plans for this when I was in high school. It was a game I played with my friends. We would talk about it and make plans, lay out blueprints and bounce ideas off one another. It was a silly mental game, a “plan­for­the­apocalypse” game, brought on by too many B­Movies, Max Brooks books and violent video games. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I never quite grew out of the game, and it carried over to University—I became something between an overzealous nerd and a doomsday survivalist. It was a joke among my friends that if the dead ever rose I would be the first to come to, and that collection of allies became a major component in my plans. Never in my schemes had I assumed I would be alone. And never had I accounted for being in a different country—being on an island country, let alone one with a nasty reputation for killing its inhabitants. I realize now that these were major oversights.

Digging the trench is hard work on an empty stomach, but I try to ignore the pains as my guts twist and revolt. I imagine that I am brave for working through the pain, and congratulate myself—it's awfully heroic to fight through the pain, isn't it? I lean against the shovel and imagine the taste of the diet cola and cold red beans I'll allow myself when I'm finished—it's all I can allot myself for the day. I take off one of the thick leather gloves to wipe the sweat from my eyes—the bandana around my forehead is already soaked through. It's thin and almost worthless for what I need it for, a cheap and itchy souvenir piece I took from a shop two weeks ago along 6

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with a dozen others like it, all bearing the Australian flag.

I take a deep breath before setting back to digging.

There was another factor I hadn’t fully accounted for, had underestimated: the sheer horror of corpses, both those that move and those that don’t. I thought I would be able to handle it better. "Destroy the head" is a simple mantra, but it’s not as easy to do as you'd think. Video games and movies don't quite portray it right. Skulls are resilient, but they all crack in the same few spots when you hit them hard enough with a hammer. After a few days worth of decay, eyes don’t stay in their sockets so well. Decayed brain matter is greasy and gray and yellow; it reeks like curdled milk. And they don’t look like they do in the movies—the ones that move don’t decompose like regular corpses. Either the sun or the virus dries up all of the moisture, necrotizes the skin until it’s black and hard and cracked, exposing blood and angry flesh beneath like slowly cooling magma. They stop blinking, and corneas become scratched and marbled—their blood­filled eyes turn to crimson egg yolks, peering out of black chelonian skulls.

Though it is now autumn I am drenched in sweat from the work. I should be protecting myself from the sun, but honestly I can’t be bothered. Nevertheless, I cast a worried glance at the freckles and moles scattered across my body. The past months have made me lean and dark, traits that highlight my ribs and my scars. An old match burn shines like a star on my wrist.

When I go back to digging I hit something hard. I assume it’s a rock, but when I try to move around it I discover it’s some sort of tubing beneath the ground. I had 7

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not accounted for this. I kneel down and brush as much of the dirt away from it as I can. It's thick and gray, a long line of numbers and letters painted red along it. What is it? An electric wire? A water pipe? A gas line? All of these luxuries have been cut off for weeks—with no one to maintain them I assume they have just stopped. But would cutting this electrocute me? Would a burst of water destroy my home? Would a gas line poison me? Could it explode, or is that just in movies?

I feel frustration bubble in the back of my head.

Another setback in a series of possibly deadly strokes of bad luck. I'm reluctant, but I should stop digging until I can figure out what to make of this. Before I know it I've thrown the shovel at the street, a stream of curse words following after it. I take a few deep breathes and walk out to retrieve it, tucking my gloves into my pockets and swearing all the while.

In the street I'm reminded of how quiet the city is now. I look down the road, an empty trail of black tar leading into the decayed and burned heart of the city. It's still a few hours until nightfall, but there's not much I can do now. I pick up my shovel and walk back inside. I can still allow myself some cold beans tonight, I think.

It is the middle of the night and I am standing on the

sidewalk of Royal Parade. To stand in a city that is wholly without light is to know true devouring hopelessness.

There is nothing more awe­inspiring and terrible than a city without a single light or human sound.

Still, daylight fades gradually, and human eyes adapt 8

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more readily to the dark than I could have ever guessed.

Living in the light for all of my life, I was blind to the dark. Now, without the aid of Edison's ingenuity, I can see better than ever. So while I am not as efficient as I'd like, I am not entirely blind, either.

And what I see is a possum in my tree.

It is, to put it simply, adorable. You can't compare them at all to the opossums back home. This possum is furry and warm and brown, like the teddy bear my girlfriend gave to me before I left home. I used to sleep with it every night, as a place­holder for her—a sort of silly sentimentality I guess. Young love.

A week after the riots ended, I burned it to ashes. I didn't feel like it had a purpose anymore.

The possum’s eyes are round, green mirrors—myself, filmed in a fisheye lens. It stares down at me, its little pink nose placed square in the middle of its fuzzy round face.

I wonder what it tastes like, or if it’s even safe to eat.

Once when I was little I came home from school to

find my father had been squirrel hunting. As I followed the fence around the back and into the house, I saw the tiny decapitated heads of the rodents propped up on our fence posts like a scene out of Heart of Darkness. Their eyes and mouths lay open, their long yellow teeth exposed to the open air. On the big oak in our yard squirrels were crucified and skinned. My father was cutting one open with a knife, and as the gate swung shut behind me he ripped the grey and white skin off of one of 9

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his victims in one powerful pull. He turned to me and grinned. “Squirrel stew tonight,” he said.

My mother didn't find out until he brought it inside and started cooking it—the smell and the sight of it made her vomit. She came out of the bathroom yelling at him that you can’t eat squirrel, that they had parasites that can’t be cooked away. He ended up throwing out the squirrel stew halfway through cooking it.

Right now, I am debating the best way to kill this

possum. I wonder if it has parasites like the squirrels did. I wonder if I would know how to skin it once I did kill it, or how I would go about preparing it. I wish my father had taught me these things. I'd always been squeamish, always turned away from hunting and violence as a child.

I had no interest in those things then. Now I have no father or friends to guide me in the skills I'd never been comfortable learning. I must make my mistakes on my own, and if they are too grievous, I will die.

This is what I wanted, I realize, when I fantasized about the apocalypse. I was sick of the safety net—this is what happens when you grow up in middle class suburbia, what happens when you've lived your life without a single real tragedy. I was sick of worrying about essays and tests and dating and a job. I wanted to go back to the simpler days, the romantic days of the nomad, when finding your next meal was all that existed. It’s funny how we romanticize awful things—the pirate on the open sea, the Viking warrior coming ashore, the knight on the field of battle. There was a reason we stopped being 10

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hunter­gatherers.

I think I once read that possum is a sweet meat—pink and juicy. I'm pretty sure the aboriginal peoples used to eat them. I can't keep my mouth from watering as those round green eyes stare back at me. Big, reflective eyes atop a pink button nose. I can’t just try to grab it, of course. It would skitter up the tree and I’d never get it. I have a few salted peanuts in my pocket, and I could use them for bait, but I’m hesitant to risk losing them in vain.

I pull the rubber mallet from the loop in my jeans. I have kept it meticulously clean of gore, held onto it solely for bashing in the head of something I could eat. I grip the handle so tight I think my fingers are going to cramp up. I imagine striking out and crushing this possum's head with all the force I can muster.

I pull the hammer back. If I am quick enough… My ribs stretch as my lungs fill with air, and even so I feel absolutely impotent, standing there with a hammer over something that has no way to fight against me. It is staring at me.

I drop my arm to my side and walk away. I will skip dinner tonight, and let myself have a can of pineapple in the morning. I couldn’t bring myself to smash that little skull.

It had just sat there and stared at me—what could I do?

I suppose it never had anyone try to kill it before. Why should they have?

It is freezing and dark when I wake up. I am wrapped

in blankets to protect from the cold, but the cold is 11

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winning out. I've been considering starting to leave a fire burning as I sleep but I know nothing good can come of that, and so I will suffer through the autumn nights and mornings and pray it doesn’t get much colder by the time winter comes.

I want to stay in bed, cocooned in the blankets and cowhide, and wait out the cold. I could hibernate here forever, I think. I could sleep for twenty­four hours at a time, lie in bed for days. Perhaps if I fell asleep long enough I could wake up in a world that was a little less insane.

There is someone breathing.

I jump upright. It is too dark, I can’t see in the thin hallway, and I begin scrambling for my headlamp. I try to calm myself and think. Did I wake up because I heard a noise? Did one of them break in? They breathe, though I don’t think they have to. Like a vestigial trait, or simply out of habit.

I am cursing. I know I left the headlamp next to my bed, but—there! I fasten it on, click once, twice, a third time to put it on a steady beam and suddenly there is a spot of dim light on my pillow. I turn around and see nothing; the light does not shine far enough ahead, and the hallway is little more than a black maw that absorbs the light and hides horrors behind it. I am shaking.

I find the cricket bat I leave beside my bed. It is a bright white, with green and black patterns along what I can only assume is the back. Kookaburra reads across it, with a yellow stencil design of the bird. I picked it largely 12

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because I thought it was attractive, but also because it read “reinforced” on the label. I don't know what that means exactly, but I hope it's that the thing will hold together better when I use it to bash in the open, moaning jaws of monsters. I was lucky, at least, to be in a country that plays cricket. Thank God for small blessings, I suppose.

I hold the bat with two hands, wielding it like a broadsword. I wait a moment and hear nothing. I step off of my bed and move forward into the darkness.

Is it possible I imagined the sound? No, I definitely heard it. But that doesn’t mean I’m not going mad. I would have heard something rattling the fence. I would have heard something break down the door.

Another cautionary step into the darkness. Another.

The Grainger is a very small building, composed of only one circular hallway with a courtyard in the center. The single hallway is divided into short segments by doors, reminding me of airlocks on spaceships in science fiction films. There are only two entrances: one door facing the street, and another facing the University. The windows are too high, small and thick for one of those things to get through.

I approach the first door; it is closed, meaning no ghoul has been through it—they are not polite enough to close doors behind them. Twitching fingertips on the handle, I pause and wait for a sound. I realize that there is no way I could have heard the sound of breathing from this far away and through the thick of the door, but this rationale does nothing to calm my nerves. I swing it open and prepare to be attacked, but there is nothing. Of course.

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I check the entire building. Everything is clear. I check it twice more to make sure. I have no idea what it is that I heard—perhaps it was my own breathing, foreign and alien to my ears.

I pray to God I’m not losing my mind, letting out a breath I didn't know I'd been holding. Today, I think, I’ll go out for a walk.

I am in a house just a few blocks north from the

Museum. It's a house I visited once, before everything went to hell. A little row house, connected to many more identical homes, one after another, that line the street.

Back then I'd come over for a dinner party, back when I was still going to classes and the only thing I truly had to fear was getting a bad grade or, at worst, getting mugged on the way home at night.

It was, overall, a wholly awkward experience.

A girl in one of my classes had invited me over. She was nice enough, though I don't think we ever had anything in common. She may have thought I was cute—I don't mean to be conceited, I can simply think of no other reason she would have talked to me, out of the blue as it was—but it never came up and I never broached the subject. She was simply someone who was interested in talking to me, and I hadn't made very many (if any) native friends. So I accepted her invitation and came over one night. They had made Mexican food, of which I had lied and claimed to be an expert in. The night had ended shortly after I got in a shouting match with a cute, dreadlocked girl about whether Neil Gaiman or Robert Jordan was the better 14

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fantasy writer.

The flat is a mess. Perhaps it's been raided already, or maybe this is simply the condition they left it in. I prefer to think they made it out alive and well, that they didn't get caught up in the riots and looting, or worse.

I have a flashlight, one of those emergency ones you can crank for power. It's not dark, but I don't want to miss anything. I kneel in the kitchen and rifle through pots and pans in the cupboards.

The reason I chose this house was because I had been here before. I barely knew this girl, we only talked a few times and I don't think we ever talked after the dinner party, but she was still the only person I had known who actually lived in the city. I feel like if I were to ransack from the house next door it would be stealing—and not like from a shop, because God knows I've looted what I could from stores. No, if I took her neighbor's things I would be stealing from a person, not a business. As long as I only take from her house, I can pretend I could one day return it.

Pots and pans clang in the cupboard under the sink as I shift things around recklessly. I stop and curse as I realize how much noise I've been making, take a deep breath and slowly begin to remove the pots, setting them on the dirty, dust­covered tile floor one at a time. I could perhaps use these for their noise, tie the handles to the chain­link fence around the Grainger and add a bit to my security system. I look over a pan in my gloved hand as I think over the practicality of this. The only result would be a panicked mind every time a bird landed on the fence.

I put the pan down. Alarms are important, but so is 15

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keeping my senses. I step gingerly over the pots and open one of the higher cupboards. My stomach growls when I discover an entire shelf of canned foods that had somehow been missed. I'm nearly shaking with excitement as I struggle to open my backpack and fill it with the cans, inspecting each one before it disappears in the bookbag’s gaping mouth—it seems as hungry as I am.

Kidney beans, black beans, rice pudding, soups. A bag of bread full of green fur that almost makes me vomit into the bandana that covers my mouth and nose. I hold the bag outstretched as I carry it to the back door, flinging it delicately to the yard. While I'm at the door I glance around, take a moment to stop and listen, but everything seems calm. Nothing moves. A bird sings somewhere nearby, and I take that as a good sign.

My backpack is almost half full, and I haven't checked the upstairs yet. I grab my ball­peen and try to make my way up the stairs silently, but every step sounds like I've stepped on the paw of a mouse. There are pictures on the walls of the girl and her friends.

Where did she tell me she grew up? I try to think. It wasn't the city, and wherever it was I hope she's back there now, safe. Or, better yet, off of this continent. I wonder how much of it has been overtaken by plague and violence. It must have crept out from here, surely, starting at the bottom and spreading up and out like necrosis in a lung. My thoughts are starting to chain to a place I don't want to go, and I focus again on reaching the top of the stairs with minimal noise.

On the second floor of the flat I find four rooms branching off from the hallway. The first door opens to 16

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reveal a bathroom, all tiled in white and blue, spotless and clean. Nothing useful under the sink, but I find bottles of ibuprofen, hydrogen peroxide, and some sleeping pills behind the mirror. Perhaps enough of the sleeping pills could kill a small animal and save me the trouble of more necessary violence. As I leave, I tap on my reflection with the hammer.

In the next two rooms I find nothing worth taking.

Some posters of musicians I've never heard of, shoes that don't fit me, but not much else. These rooms have been cleared out, their possessions either ransacked or taken by their owners. Nothing strange about that, not really. It's the last room that's odd.

The first thing I notice when I walk in is that the bed still has its sheets. This is immediately followed—and overshadowed by—the realization that there are books on the shelves. It's not hard to decide which commodity is more important, and I go over to look at the books first.

She has the obligatory textbooks, some fantasy (Robert Jordan), a few romances centered around highlanders and, surprisingly, a collection of horror. I pull a small paperback off the shelf and open it, reading a few lines to myself before tucking it in my jacket pocket.

Beside the bookshelf is a dresser, and I notice that all the framed pictures have my probably­not­admirer in them. I realize this must be her room as I pick up a picture of her with who I assume is her sister. They're at some beach, one that looks like every other beach on the perimeter of this miniature world—all sand and stone, all beautiful golds and blues, all exactly the same. It's when I put the picture down that I notice what is most off about 17

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this place.

There are boards over the closet doors.

The doors are the flimsy wooden kind that open outwards in either direction, folding out like wings. The boards are hastily nailed together over them to keep the hinges in place. As if it would add any measure of safety, both doors and planks are covered in patches of silver duct tape.

I am finding it hard to swallow. My throat feels like it's collapsing in on itself.

I grip the hammer so tight it begins to hurt my palm, and I can feel dry skin pull tight over boney knuckles.

I take a deep breath in and begin to slowly move towards the closet, straining my ears as I try to hear something, anything, from within—but there is complete silence throughout the house. I don't know what drives me closer, I know that this kind of curiosity can lead to nothing but harm, but before I know it my ear is mere inches away from the shiny, creased duct tape surface of the door. Still, I can't hear anything. A bird sings outside, but within the house I hear no movement.

Slowly, silently, I raise the hammer up to ear level, and give a gentle tap on the wooden plank.

From the other side of the door comes a heavy slam.

The doors shake on their hinges and I fall backwards to the floor, bruising my back on my bag full of cans. I lose my hammer for a moment and scramble for it as I try to stand and the door keeps shaking. No other sound—no groaning, no breathing—just a pounding on the door, as if it were pleading to be let out. I run down the stairs and pay no heed to making further noise. Nothing stops me 18

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until I burst out of the front door of the flat and stand, shaking, on their porch.

The adrenaline is too much for me—I'm starting to feel dizzy. My eyes swim and shake in my head, my grip loosens on the hammer and I fear I may fall if I keep standing, so I sit on the porch of my own accord. I try to take deep breaths and calm my pounding heart, but I never did quite learn how to manage stress. I place a finger to my throat and count slowly. It takes a while before I can see clearly, and even then my joints feel too weak to stand.

The sun is still high in the sky, I notice. I have a few more hours until sunset. I look out at Royal Parade, at the arch it makes at the top of campus. College Crescent, it's called. I used to have a couple of American friends at University College, the dormitory only a few houses down this street. We had all come here to study abroad, but I was the only one with different housing. I lost contact with them when the city fell, but I assumed they managed to get out, that University College had arranged some sort of escape plan.

I haven't been to U.C. yet. I'm sure that there are a lot of salvageable things there. Cooking supplies, loose bricks, lots of books and maybe even some food and water. Still, for the goldmine of treasures that it could have locked away, I am terribly afraid of what I'd find there.

It is a cold, clear day, and I’m walking the streets that

used to make up a city called Melbourne. Here is a pub I 19

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used to go to. The windows are smashed out, and bits of glass crack and crunch beneath my boots as I walk by it. I glance in quickly, like I do every time I pass it, but there’s still nothing there.

Buildings that were set aflame during the riots jab up at the sky like used matches. Charred and burned, they are an affront to the blue, cloudless day. I hold the blade of the cricket bat on my shoulder, rest it against the cow­hide pancho I made. The souvenir bandana covers my face, and will continue to until I can find a respirator or gas mask to protect me from undead gore. Around my neck I wear a carved bone amulet I found at the Queen Vic market. I remember seeing the stand with the man selling them the first time I was ever there. I had flipped through the old, worn binder describing each symbol’s meaning. But I couldn’t find the binder when I took the pendant weeks later, so I have no idea what this one means. My hat, if the tag is to be believed, is authentic kangaroo leather.

I try to fit the part I'm left to play.

Up ahead there is a seagull circling the street. In the Grampians, a man told me how the aborigines only use the returning kind of boomerangs to hunt birds because the boomerang arcs, so it’s easier to surprise them. I wonder if the cheap souvenir toys would even fly, let alone break a seagull’s neck or fracture a wing. The cheap things are easier to find than fleas on a dog, though— when I get home tonight I'll start practicing throwing them. The birds are still prevalent here, and I’m sure they’d make good food if I could just catch them.

I look up at the sun. Today, it is kind. I feel its warmth 20

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against my skin, contrasted against the cool air. The sensation of life in a dead city.

I admit that I have no false illusions. I know that I will die here. There is no escape, there is no rebuilding society.

I simply wasn’t handed those cards, and I accept that. I can only push myself to survive until I am brave enough to stop. I can't let death take me until I’m no longer afraid of it. Until I know there was nothing else I could have done, that this is my life and there is no other life to be had.

And when that day comes, when I know I’ve done all I can, I will march to Federation Square and stand before the massive television there. I will scream with all my might. I will scream until they come from every crevice of the city, until they emerge from the Yarra, until they swarm like flies from every dark and charred corner. I will scream until my throat is raw, until they tear it out. I will scream with all of the potential I had in a world that was not ruined.

When I’m no longer afraid.

Zachary Woodard is a resident of Philadelphia. His work has been previously published in Intellectual Refuge and in the December issue of Whole Beast Rag.

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STORAGE CYLINDERS

by Brandon Crilly

This story was inspired by Stuart Ross’s poem “I Open the Lid.” Many thanks, Stuart, for your guidance and example.

Bryant felt a hand on his shoulder before he stepped

through the airlock.

“Are you sure you’re going to be able to do this?” asked his partner, Hyor. Every third or fourth syllable was punctuated by a popping sound from the membranes on his throat as they tried to sap moisture from the recycled air around them.

“I know my job, Hyor,” Bryant replied, trying not to sound angry. Hyor was technically his superior, but their relationship was usually one of equals. “I can remain objective, don’t worry.”

“Not worried. Just curious.”

The slight curve of Hyor’s lipless mouth succeeded in putting Bryant at ease; he smiled wryly as he led the way through the airlock.

Bryant observed the faded, yellow lettering on the entrance to the starship they had docked with while they waited for their patrol vessel’s computer to override the airlock door. The ship’s name, ODYSSEY, was spelled out in the writing system of a language that was quickly becoming extinct. As far as Bryant knew, he was the only Jurist who could understand English, a fact that he had taken a long time to accept.

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The door ground open, squealing like it was in agony.

Before they stepped inside, both Jurists checked the recording units on their shoulders, which were linked to the pads worn on each man’s left wrist. Both would be needed by the Prime Jury if their verdicts were contested.

Given how tiny the ship seemed from the outside, Bryant wasn’t surprised by the cramped, narrow corridor they stepped into. The lighting was dim, but their wristlamps made up for that, showing them the decrepit interior in full detail. There was no paneling on the walls or ceiling; instead, the cables and bulkheads holding the ship together were in full view. Hoses hung low from the ceiling, forcing the two Jurists to duck occasionally as they proceeded down the corridor. Bits of broken machinery littered the ground, along with occasional puddles of industrial fluid; the stench was a sign the ship was still running at least partly on fossil fuels.

The corridor opened into a larger, circular cabin in the same ramshackle condition. Bryant stopped at the threshold. Directly opposite was another corridor, leading starboard into darkness. To the left, he could see a short alcove that served as the cockpit. And to the right – “I’ve done nothing wrong!”

The screaming, flailing shape was in Bryant’s face before he could react. He stumbled backward, tripped over a loose cable, and landed on his back. As he struggled to get back to his feet, slipping on something wet, he saw Hyor’s sidearm overhead and heard his partner shout something in Rellen, the Capital Authority’s trade language.

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“Wait!” Bryant ordered. He could hear the same voice that had assaulted him babbling a few meters away. It was raspy, distinctly male, and speaking English.

“Are you all right?” Hyor asked. He helped Bryant to his feet with one free hand.

“I’m fine, he just startled me.”

Bryant saw his assailant crouched near the center of the cabin. Surprisingly, there was no furniture except for the lone chair in front of the ship’s controls. The rest of the cabin’s contents consisted of a few crates of meagre­looking supplies, scattered tools, and piles of refuse.

Bryant gestured for Hyor to stay back a little and holster his weapon. Hyor stared for a long moment at the huddled figure before letting out a wet sigh and doing as instructed. Bryant moved forward alone, stepping carefully around the scattered objects until he was a meter from the old man. His brown robes were as ragged as the ship, and he was hiding his face behind two gnarled hands.

“I’m guessing you know who we are,” Bryant said. As he spoke, he was surprised by how the words on his tongue felt comfortable and foreign at the same time.

There was an odd thrill at the combination, one that he had never experienced when he learned English as a child. Back then, he couldn’t understand his tutor’s joy while spelling out words and phrases; now, he had a flickering sense of that emotion.

He forcibly brought his mind back to reality and the man in front of him, and continued, “You’ve been charged with theft of goods, defaulting on docking fees, and 24

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traveling between systems without proper transit papers.

My partner and I are here to judge your case and deliver a verdict.”

The man didn’t look up as Bryant spoke. People tended to avert their gaze from Jurists, out of fear that some trace of their guilt would be given away in their eyes.

Bryant peered closer, trying to see the man’s face. His eyes widened in surprise – not because of the deep wrinkles, the crooked nose, or the disintegrating white hair, but because the man’s eyes were clenched tightly together and he was shivering, as though terrified.

While Bryant spoke to the old man, Hyor had drifted over to the cockpit alcove and was examining the flight controls. He said to Bryant, “It looks like he planned to be out here for a while. His course is directed into deep space, not any specific planet.”

Bryant nodded, filing the information later for their brief to the Prime Jury. As he turned his gaze back to the old man, he caught a closer glimpse of the crates of supplies. Each one was stamped with the Capital Authority’s emblem, a crimson trapezoid set over a black circle.

“That must be the stolen food,” Bryant said. “That is the first piece of evidence against you. We will search the rest of your ship to collect additional evidence before rendering our verdict.”

The old man kept silent. Bryant tried to ignore the man’s obvious terror and remain impartial. After waiting for a full minute, he sighed and slowly lowered himself to a crouch, balancing carefully on the dirty, uneven deck.

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“Can you hear me?” Bryant asked softly. He tried to sound gentle without being overly friendly.

He exchanged a glance with Hyor and saw his partner’s obvious impatience. When he turned back, he noticed that the old man was muttering under his breath, almost too quietly to be heard.

“Have to keep them safe, have to preserve them, only one, no one, no one left, only me, only me, have to keep them safe...”

Bryant frowned and leaned in closer.

“Keep them safe, have to keep them safe, but I have to live, how do I live, keep it alive, have to eat, food, eating for nourishment, stay alive, keep them alive, everything safe, have to survive...”

“What are you keeping safe?” Bryant’s voice was a whisper. “What are you talking about?”

The old man fell silent. Tears were streaking down his withered face. In a haggard whisper, he said, “It’s all we have left...”

He clutched his head again and continued muttering.

“He might be insane, Hyor,” Bryant called to his partner.

The question was whether or not his insanity was deep enough to affect the verdict. Insanity pleas were tricky.

“What do you think?”

“For once, I actually have no idea.”

Bryant turned around. Hyor was shining his wristlamp toward the rear of the cabin, opposite the cockpit. His face bore a look of complete bewilderment. Bryant turned to follow the light and instantly saw the source of his partner’s confusion.

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The entire rear wall was encompassed by a curving, metal shelving unit. The shelves were stocked with dozens of silver storage cylinders, each about thirty centimetres in circumference. The cylinders sparkled under Bryant and Hyor’s wristlamps like the lost riches of the Céger, before the Authority’s time.

He left the old man where he was and walked over to the cylinders. Each of them was an identical, fairly common brand of storage unit. A solid green light showed that they were hermetically sealed. Bryant looked around at the rest of the decrepit ship, figuring the old man must have spent every credit he had on those cylinders. So this is what he’s keeping safe?

His gloved hand grasped one.

“Cannot touch them!”

“Stay where you are until a verdict is passed,” Hyor ordered sharply, his membranes popping tensely between each word. He drew his sidearm again and left it hanging at his side.

The old man was on his feet now, but stayed where he was. Bryant nodded at Hyor, then continued what he was doing.

The cylinder was surprisingly light. Bryant depressurized the lid and lifted it away.

There was only one thing inside: a length of yellow fabric, maybe ten centimetres long. Aside from the frayed edges, as though it had been torn on either end, there was nothing remarkable about it.

He returned the fabric, resealed the cylinder and grabbed another. This one contained a small pile of tiny, plastic triangles with rounded corners. Each was no 27

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bigger than his thumb, and they came in a variety of colors.

“What’s in there?” Hyor asked.

Bryant shook his head. “I don’t know.”

He studied the other dozens of cylinders. All had been shown the kind of care someone would give their most precious possessions. The old man was obsessed with preserving their contents. But what’s so important about fabric or bits of plastic? Insanity was too easy a conclusion; Bryant knew there had to be something he wasn’t seeing.

Determined to understand, he began pulling down cylinders at random and looking at their contents. The first contained a worn, conical shell with slashes of brown across its pale surface, common enough on most planets.

The next held an old, rusty key and a padlock, though it was obvious they weren’t a match. Then there were a few soft, fluffy balls that could fit in his palm, made of a white material he didn’t recognize.

The old man started whimpering, but Hyor’s command kept him from doing anything else.

Bryant’s confusion grew with every cylinder he looked in. He could hear Hyor tapping his sidearm against his leg in boredom or impatience, but decided to ignore him while he grabbed another cylinder. He was shocked when he recognized what was inside.

The metal figurine was slightly bigger than his hand.

He rotated it between his fingers, taking in the four legs, the long neck, and the black and white stripes. He knew he had seen something like it before, but for the moment he couldn’t remember where. The voice of his old tutor

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came to mind, reverberating like an echo, too incoherent for him to place.

And then it struck him. Bryant set down the cylinder and activated the pad on his wrist. As quickly as he could while still holding the figurine, he entered in a search command for the pad’s link to their patrol ship’s database.

It did not take long to find the file he needed. When the hologram emerged from his pad, the projected image was nearly identical to the figurine: long neck, four legs, black and white stripes. There was a single phrase across the bottom of the image: Zebra, formerly of Earth.

Now Bryant remembered. He had learned about zebras with his tutor, when they were studying flora and fauna from his homeworld. Normally recalling his childhood lessons was pleasant; now, it only made him feel numb.

They said everything was lost. They said there wasn’t even enough to put in a display case.

He returned the zebra to its cylinder with caution, almost terrified that he might break it. He resealed and re­shelved the cylinder like the others, his thoughts a whirring mess that he couldn’t decipher.

When Earth was destroyed, generations before he was born, there were hardly any humans offworld. The few who survived were absorbed into the Capital Authority, and they were so scattered that human culture was virtually forced into extinction. Bryant knew more about the history of Hyor’s people and the Authority’s other major species than he did about his own kind.

Could everything here be...?

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The items varied more and more with each cylinder he unsealed. The worn sole of a boot. A cluster of broken pottery that might have been a plate. A misshapen lump of onyx. A flat disc, wider than his face, with a faded label on its surface. Torn fragments of paper, the writing too faded to read, so that he couldn’t even tell if they were from the same document. A tiny, corroded tube that he was pretty sure used to be a battery. A cracked glass with a long stem. Clumps of hair or fur, stored together even though they varied in coarseness and softness. Half a candle, melted sometime long ago, the wick no longer attached.

None of these items seemed at all important. He would expect a collection of things from Earth – possibly the only collection in existence – to include important documents, photographs, or relics from the most pivotal events in human history. These cylinders, however ... To Bryant, all they contained was trash, the residue of a dying species that no longer had a home.

He noticed a cylinder on the far right with a blue light on its control panel in addition to the green, which meant that it was climate­controlled. He reached for it, but then paused and glanced behind him. The old man was staring at the floor in apparent defeat, resigned to the fact that he couldn’t keep his cherished possessions from being examined.

In addition to the hiss of escaping air, light mist whooshed from the cylinder as the lid was removed.

Bryant waited for the mist to dissipate so he could see what was inside.

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A single ice cube rested at the bottom. Bryant lifted it out between his thumb and forefinger. The cube was imperfect, having partially dissolved before it was preserved. He looked at it more closely and realized there were flecks of brown liquid dotting its surface; the cube had been in someone’s glass. Bryant couldn’t begin to imagine how it had survived long enough to make it inside the cylinder.

This was what he was looking for. This water...

When he saw a tiny rivulet running down his glove, he gasped. As quickly as he could, he returned the cube to the cylinder and resealed it. His heart was pounding, and he took a breath to steady it.

He felt a presence beside him and turned to see the old man standing a couple meters away.

“How,” Bryant said, “did you find all of this?”

The old man didn’t respond. He was staring at the cylinders with a kind of longing. There was a strange smile on his face.

Bryant tried again. “These things ... they should be in a museum.”

“If the Authority wanted our species in a museum,” the old man replied, dropping his smile, “they would have collected these things themselves.”

He wandered away again, only a couple meters, but it seemed as though he had forgotten saying anything.

Bryant studied his fingers where he had held the ice cube and saw the slick, wet residue that had been left behind on his glove. He frowned, realizing that tiny remnant of Earth’s water would evaporate and be lost forever in the ship’s recycled air.

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“Hyor.”

His partner didn’t respond. Bryant looked up from his gloved hand, desperately seeking guidance from the more experienced Jurist.

Hyor wasn’t paying attention to him. His gaze was focused on a hologram projected from his pad. Bryant couldn’t make out what he was looking at, only that his fingers were moving rapidly on the projected screen.

“Hyor,” he pressed.

When his partner looked up, his expression was intense.

In one smooth motion, he deactivated his pad – and drew his sidearm, pointing it directly at the old man.

Instinctively, Bryant’s hand shot to his own weapon, but he came short of pulling it from its holster. He demanded, “Hyor, what are you doing?”

“We need to take this man into custody.” Hyor continued to stare at the old man, who was frozen in apparent confusion.

“What about a verdict?”

“The verdict is guilty.”

Dumbfounded, Bryant shook his head. “I contest the verdict. It’s not unanimous –” “Your objection is noted, Bryant, but the judgment stands.”

“That’s in violation of the Authority’s statutes –” “By Statute 12­7 of the Capital Authority Code of Justice, the Prime Jury may supersede any Jurist and issue a direct verdict. They just did so. The verdict is guilty, Bryant.”

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“Why is the Prime Jury superseding?” Bryant demanded angrily. “We haven’t finished collecting evidence yet, or rendered our own preliminary verdict.”

“Those questions can be handled in an appeal, Bryant.

We need to carry out the verdict.” Hyor fixed his full attention on the old man again. “You will be taken into custody until a sentence is passed. Your property will be confiscated –” “No!” Suddenly the old man was in motion, sprinting away from the two Jurists, stumbling toward the darkened corridor opposite where Bryant and Hyor had entered.

Bryant called out, but the old man ignored him.

Hyor didn’t bother to call out. The single energy blast struck the old man in the back just as he reached the corridor’s threshold. The extra force and his own momentum sent him sailing into the darkness.

Bryant’s weapon was in his hands in an instant, pointed directly at his partner. Hyor pivoted on one foot so that his sidearm was aimed at Bryant’s forehead. They stood like that in silence, Bryant acutely aware of the rows of storage cylinders stacked behind him, and that he was the only thing between their contents and Hyor’s sidearm.

“Hyor, what are you doing?”

“I told you,” Hyor replied, his voice surprisingly level.

“By Statute 12­7, the Prime Jury issued a guilty verdict for this case. Our job is to carry out that verdict.”

“But not the sentence, Hyor.” Unlike his partner, Bryant’s voice was shaking as he tried to accept what was going on around him. “You just committed murder.”

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“No, I didn’t. The verdict was passed, and he resisted. A count of resisting arrest is retroactively added to the charges. He was going for a hidden weapon –” “What weapon?”

“– which adds a retroactive count of attempted murder against a Jurist. Sentence passed is death, also retroactive.” Hyor’s lipless mouth contorted into a grim smile as he added, “It’s all legal, Bryant. Now put down your weapon.”

“Not until you explain yourself.”

“I just did.”

“What did you see on your pad?”

Hyor didn’t respond. His wet breathing was labored from tension, almost echoing in the decrepit ship. Again, both Jurists lapsed into silence, staring at each other over the barrels of their weapons.

When Hyor finally spoke, it wasn’t the response that Bryant was expecting.

“I need to take you into custody.”

“What?”

“Your judgment is clearly flawed. The contents of those cylinders are clouding your –” “How do you know what’s in these cylinders?” Bryant demanded. His grip on his weapon tightened. “You asked me what was in them, so clearly you didn’t know then.

What was on your pad, Hyor?”

“I’m sorry, Bryant.” He actually sounded sincere. “I need to take you into custody. And everything on this ship will be confiscated – and likely destroyed, with the exception of the stolen supplies.”

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Bryant couldn’t believe it. How could the Authority destroy everything?

“Hyor, please.” Bryant tried not to sound like he was pleading, but failed. “These cylinders ... these might be the last remnants of my people.”

“Your people are dead, Bryant. Earth is nothing but a memory, and humanity will follow soon enough. Your only allegiance is to the Authority and your duty as a Jurist.”

Bryant couldn’t see a way out of this. Hyor was right; his first duty was to the Authority. He was already likely to lose his position as a Jurist, depending on how their superiors viewed this case. There was clearly more going on here, but he wasn’t going to find out in a standoff with his partner. His only hope at protecting these cylinders was compliance, and negotiating with the Prime Jury later.

Feeling like he was betraying his people – what few of them were left in the galaxy – he lowered his weapon.

Hyor kept his weapon trained on Bryant. “Thank you,” he said softly.

At that point, Bryant expected him to lower his weapon, as well. Instead, he saw his partner’s shoulders tense – Bryant threw himself sideways as quickly as he could, and heard rather than saw Hyor’s weapon discharging.

Something exploded behind him, and then a searing heat struck Bryant in the side, knocking him against the shelves and rattling the cylinders stacked there. As he fell, Bryant desperately raised his weapon and squeezed the trigger. He landed in a heap on the refuse­laden deck.

To his surprise, there were no more shots.

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Grimacing against the aching heat in his torso, Bryant forced his eyes open. Hyor wasn’t standing anymore. He was on his knees, eyes wide in shock, membranes desperately groping for air while one hand clutched the gaping wound in his chest. He stared at Bryant in disbelief, and then collapsed backward and lay still.

Bryant gasped and let his body relax. When he dropped his weapon, the sound it made against the deck reminded him of the shattering he had heard. He looked beside him and saw one of the storage cylinders lying in pieces.

Among the twisted shards of metal were a few tiny droplets of water, sizzling and steaming against the deck.

Bryant just stared as the brown­flecked water fizzled into nothingness, refusing to let this last memory of Earth’s oceans disappear unseen.

He wasn’t sure how long he lay on the deck, staring at the destroyed cylinder. When he finally tried to move, there was a sharp slash of agony across his entire midsection. He looked down, and noticed for the first time the thick pool of blood collecting on the deck beneath him – and the shocking hole in his side where flesh and bone had been before.

After a few more minutes spent struggling to rise, Bryant finally made it to his feet. He looked around the cabin, feeling oddly sluggish. He took in Hyor’s collapsed body in front of him, the boxes of Authority supplies, the general decay of the ship ... and finally past them, to the flight controls at the other end of the cabin.

Slowly, he staggered forward, carefully avoiding the refuse scattered across the deck. He cast a brief glance down the starboard corridor and saw the old man’s 36

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crumpled form in the shadows. A part of him wanted to pay some sort of last respect to the man, but he couldn’t remember any old Earth funeral rites, and he knew he didn’t have time.

By the time he reached the flight controls, he could barely read the display. His numb fingers tapped across the sections of the screen that were familiar to him, seemingly in vain. Bryant frowned, wondering why he didn’t seem to be accomplishing anything.

Then he heard it, in the distance: the sound of an airlock disengaging.

It was followed soon after by the sound of ion engines powering up.

He was no longer standing when the Odyssey began moving forward through space. Instead, Bryant lay on the edge of the cockpit alcove, staring across the cabin at the shattered storage cylinder while tears rolled down his cheeks.

His last thought was of lost pieces of humanity, before the Odyssey sped away into the void.

Brandon Crilly is a high school History teacher from Ontario, Canada. His speculative fiction has been published in That Not Forgotten (Hidden Brook Press) and is forthcoming in On Spec and The End (Static Movement). For more information about his published work, please visit http://brandoncrilly.wordpress.com.

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CREEPTOWN

by D.M. Anderson

Scott had a relapse on the last step of the program.

Damn, he was so close. I was really pulling for the guy, too. It broke my heart to write the last chapter of his life, such as it was.

I saw so much of me in him, from the moment he was brought down here, thrashing and screaming on a hospital gurney, strings of meat still hanging off his teeth.

As I watched him through two­way glass, there was something in his eyes I usually didn’t see in most Creeps snatched from above…sorrow, maybe even remorse. It was that flash of humanity that convinced me to sign on as his sponsor.

“You sure?” Nick asked with a shit­eating grin. From behind the glass, we watched Brad and Packy hoist the gurney and unceremoniously drop Scott onto the steel table in the center of the room, one of several in the part of the facility we called Nightmare Alley. After tightening the straps keeping him down, they made a quick exit, locking the door behind them. “Look at 'im. He’s a mad dog. A hundred bucks says he won’t make it.”

I didn’t bother explaining my empathy toward our new arrival. Nick never gave a damn about such stuff anyway. I simply turned and shook his hand. “You’re on.”

“Sucker,” Nick sneered before leaving me alone to regard the screaming, bug­eyed Creep I just committed to rehabilitating. I felt his anguish and terror, not knowing 38

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where he was or who brought him down here. Just like I did years ago, he struggled against the gurney straps so hard that he rubbed his flesh raw at the wrists and ankles.

I still have my scars, because the dead don’t heal.

I hung out in Nightmare Alley the entire week, smoking cigarettes and watching Scott through the glass as withdrawal set in. I battled the urge to rush into the room and put him out of his misery with the swift swing of an axe. Lopping off his head right now would be just as humane as putting down a rabid dog. Then that flash of humanity would return to his eyes, if only for a second, and I’d be reminded of the big picture. The man was in hell, but as the first step of the program, this was a necessary hell.

“Spiders!” he started screaming on the second day. The hallucinations were kicking in. He lifted his head from the matted, stained pillow, staring in horror down at his arms and chest as imaginary arachnids scurried across his skin.

Strapped down tight, he was helpless to brush them away.

“Spiders! Get ‘em off me! Get ‘em off me!”

Hang in there, dude.

On occasion, Nick would pop in and encourage me to end Scott’s agony…and lighten my wallet of a C­note.

Sorry, Nick…no pay­off just yet.

The hallucinations are nasty... lying in a sterile room, strapped down tight, and no matter how much you scream, how much you beg, no one comes to end the agony. You just lie there all by yourself while your brain conjures the worst horrors imaginable. I still remember my hallucinations, only instead of spiders, I had big yellow banana slugs slithering in and out every orifice.

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Ask anyone...kicking addiction is a bitch.

But the hallucinations eventually go away, and by the fifth day, Scott started to calm down. He was still hurting, hunger stabbing his gut like a knife, but at least the spiders were gone. The once­crazed face had slackened, the agonized shrieks melted into low, guttural moans, and his fingernails stopped cutting into his palms.

That was my cue. I threw on a labcoat and entered the room clutching a clipboard. My get­up was just for show.

The clipboard held nothing but a few blank pages, and I found the lab coat in an old supply closet. But looking professional sometimes put the newbies at ease.

Scott raised his head and eyeballed me fearfully, lower lip trembling. I offered a slight smile, scooted a folding chair up to the table and took a seat, pretending to consult my empty clipboard. I must have convinced him I wasn’t an immediate threat; he slowly dropped his head back to the pillow and stared up at the ceiling.

“How are you doing, Scott?” I casually said.

He shot me a suspicious eye. “Scott? Who’s Scott?”

Then he briefly struggled against the straps. “Where am I? Who are you?”

I forced a confident chuckle. “It’s okay. You’re among friends down here. To answer your first question, you arrived with no ID, so we assigned you a name. Why, do you remember your real one?”

“What kind of question is that? Of course I...I...” He paused, mouth agape, brows furrowed in confusion. Then he slowly looked my way, totally alarmed. “I...don’t know.

Why don’t I know my real name?”

“It happens. No big deal. There‘s a good chance it‘ll 40

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come back to you as you go through the program.”

“What the hell are you talking about? Down here? What program?”

When you’ve been down here long as I have, you tend to forget how alien Creeptown is to new arrivals. As far as Scott was concerned, one day he’s at a Starbucks drive­thru, the next day he’s strapped to a table with insatiable hunger pains.

“Well,” I began after pretending to clear my throat. “you are a Creep.”

“Yeah, well fuck you, too.”

I snorted at his remark. “No, I mean that's kinda what we call ourselves. Sounds better than zombie, anyway.”

“Zombie?” He scowled at me in contempt. “I’m not an idiot, whoever you are. Zombies aren’t real.”

“Well, not in the Night of the Living Dead sense. I know you don’t remember this right now…” With a pencil, I tapped the open wound on his left forearm, still oozing pus and blood. “…but you were bitten and infected with a rather nasty blood­born pathogen…TD­6, it’s called. It works fast and it’s lethal...sort of.”

Scott was incredulous. “What do you mean, sort of?”

“You’re awake, aren’t you?” I felt like I was blowing my whole informed expert ruse. “Simply put, you died, then woke up really fucking hungry.”

“Oh, bullshit! I didn't die!” Scott's eyes darted about the room. “This ain't a hospital. It's some kind of...of...brainwashing thing, like a cult or something!”

Once again, he struggled against his straps.

Playing the role of a hard­case, I stood and aimed a finger at his face. “Then tell me, Scott, what’s the last 41

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thing you remember before arriving here C’mon...anything...”

“Calling the cops, asshole. There was some drunken bum on the fire escape outside my apartment, trying to break in­” “And then?”

He froze and frowned, his brain obviously struggling to conjure up anything to answer my question. Then he glared at me defiantly. “Okay, so my memory is a little fuzzy. That doesn’t mean­” “You don’t remember anything because you’re a Creep, which kinda empties the head a bit. Trust me, Scott, that’s a good thing. You have enough shit to deal with right now without memories fucking things up.”

Scott snorted as he glared at me. “And what exactly do I have to deal with now?”

I regarded him thoughtfully. “First things first, Scott.

It’s been awhile since you’ve eaten and I’ll bet you’re starving.”

All distrust drained from his face at the mention of food. Suddenly, Scott was all smiles. “Hell, yeah.”

“Tell me...if you could eat anything right now, what would it be? For your sake, be honest.”

Scott froze, mouth agape. Several seconds passed before a single tear oozed from his left eye and dotted the stained pillow under his head. His jaw opened and closed uncontrollably.

“Uh…fingers?” he slurred, shame in his face.

I took his trembling hand in mine and squeezed, offering him a knowing smile. “I know, Scott. That’s why you’re here. We don’t have any fingers, but we do have 42

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something which may help. Nick?”

On cue, Nick came into the room clutching a Tupperware container. He handed it over with his usual shit­eating grin, the only sign I needed to know he was still trying to sabotage me. I quickly stood and shoved Nick back through the door.

“What the hell are you doing, man?” he said incredulously.

I pinned him against the hallway wall outside Nightmare Alley, using a foot to tap the door shut behind me. “Nice try, my friend.”

Nick pasted­on his best who me? face.

“You know,” I said. “you’re the world’s worst actor and a sore loser.”

I released my hold of him, then unsnapped the lid from the Tupperware container. It was filled with earthworms, writhing and slithering among each other. I dipped my hand into the bowl. A few worms plopped to the concrete floor. Nick offered a sheepish grin as I pulled out a severed big toe.

I held it up to Nick’s face. “Really, dude?”

Nick shrugged. “Hey, how’d that get there?”

“You’re a dick, Nick. I won’t even ask how you were able to sneak a toe down here.”

I dropped the digit to the floor, turned around and went back into the room, slamming the door behind me. Scott lifted his head from the bed, looking confused.

I pasted on a reassuring grin. “Sorry ‘bout that. A little mix­up in the menu.”

He warily eyeballed the bowl. “What the hell’s that?”

I pinched one of the meatier worms and plucked it from 43

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the bowl. It writhed in protest as it dangled in my grip.

Scott’s eyes grew huge. “What the fuck? I thought you said you had food.”

“I do. Down the hatch.” I lifted the worm, dipped its tip between my lips and sucked it in like a spaghetti noodle.

After gnashing it into pasty pieces, I swallowed hard, regarded Scott’s shocked face and smiled. “Yummy. Try one.” I pulled another out and held it over Scott’s head.

“Are you fucking nuts? That ain't food! That's bait!”

“You know that twisted knot in your gut right now, like the world’s worst hunger pang? You could eat a dozen Quarter Pounders and you’d still be hungry. These little fellas, however, help quell the urge.”

“What urge?”

“The urge to eat people, of course. Look, I know what you’re going through. When I first got here, the idea of munching down invertebrates seemed repulsive, too. But trust me, you don’t really have a choice.”

I could tell in his agonized face he didn’t need much more convincing. As I lowered the worm, Scott’s instincts took over; his nostrils flared in and out, taking in the stench of live meat hovering just above his mouth. His jaw opened and closed involuntarily as he lifted his head to eat. I dropped the worm in.

“Chew it up good, Scott. You don’t want pieces of him wiggling around in your belly. It’ll feel like an itch you can’t scratch.”

Scott nodded gratefully as he noisily ground the worm in his teeth. “Chewy,” he managed as he munched. “like calamari.”

“I never dug seafood, so I’ll take your word for it.”

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He finally swallowed. At that instant, he appeared to relax a bit. He dropped his head back to the pillow and let­out an audible sigh.

“Better?” I asked.

“A little. But they taste like shit.”

“You’ll get used to it. I gave up smoking once by switching to those e­cigs, which also took some getting used to. But this time I really wanted to quit, and those e­cigs did the job a lot better than nicotine patches.”

Licking his lips, Scott asked, “Were you finally able to kick the habit?”

“I went six months without a smoke when some fucking Creep took a bite out of my ass. Now I'm back to smoking like a chimney because, hey, why the fuck not?”

We simultaneously laughed out loud, renewing my confidence we were off to a good start.

I placed the bowl on his belly so I could undo his wrist straps. Hands free, Scott proceeded to grab handfuls of worms and shove them in his mouth.

Creeptown was built from a post­World War II bomb

shelter deep beneath Seattle, meaning there is almost no one left who knows it exists. The massive facility was originally created to shelter thousands of people in case of a nuclear attack. Now it's our refuge from the human race, who’d likely destroy us if they knew we were down here. The rehab section of the facility, where Scott would spend the next several months, was located on the lowest level.

I told all this to Scott as we toured the place, dank 45

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concrete halls dimly lit with flickering fluorescent light.

He dutifully shuffled along two steps behind me, occasionally dipping into the sandwich bag of night crawlers we gave him after he graduated from Nightmare Alley.

I did my usual tour guide routine. “Through this door is the rec room. If poker’s your thing, there’s a Texas Holdem tournament every Saturday...just keep your wits about you when Nick Hobbs is at the table. The guy’s a shark.”

I stopped at the next door and lit a cigarette. “This is my favorite room, Creeptown Multiplex. It’s just an old flatscreen TV and some sofas, but I love movies. You like movies, Scott?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Like what?”

“I dunno…shit where stuff blows up.”

“Well, I’m afraid we don’t have many of those, but we gotta lotta classics ...Casablanca, King Kong, Rebecca, The Thin Man, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and a ton of old TV shows on VHS & DVD. We ain’t Netflix, but hey… better than nothing.”

Scott licked his lips, stuffed his worm bag in his overalls and stepped up to the shelf on the wall, clumsily stacked with dozens of discs and tapes. “These are all old black & white flicks.”

“Yeah,” I replied. “Seeing people in color makes them seem more real…plays hell with the rehab. The only color films we got are cartoons.”

Scott nodded. “I guess that makes sense. But I sure wish I coulda seen Die Hard one more time.”

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I gave him a reassuring pat on the pack. “Who knows?

If you graduate from the program, the sky’s the limit.

Maybe you can even get out of here in time to catch Avengers 2 one evening.”

Aside from the obvious desire to eat the living, there

are two really shitty things about being a Creep…

First, you never sleep. Sure, we get physically tired and need to rest on occasion, but we never drift into total dreamland, so we have a ton of spare time on our hands.

That might initially seem cool, but trying to keep yourself occupied 24/7 while fighting addiction is fucking tough.

That’s probably why most of my friends in Creeptown can knit an afghan in a day, learn every conceivable yo­yo trick in a week and recite Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner verbatim (as well as the Iron Maiden song… always popular on karaoke night). And I guess it goes without saying that video games are fucking huge down here. I’m not boasting when I say there’s no one on Earth able to beat me at Mario Kart. I’ve had a shitload of practice.

When you don’t sleep, time crawls, and it’s pretty amazing what one will do to keep occupied. I can’t speak for other Creeps, but maybe another reason I sometimes sponsor guys like Scott is out of sheer boredom...a pet project to fill the endless hours.

Scott turned out to be a pretty nice guy and, once his rehab began in earnest, I actually enjoyed hanging around him. It turned out we had even more in common than I initially assumed when they brought him down here. We 47

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were both Seahawks fans; we both loved movies (though it took him awhile to warm up to the old classics we had in Creeptown Multiplex); heavy metal was our music of choice. After a few months, it was almost like having a little brother following me around, which made it a lot harder when I eventually had to put him down.

Rehab is relentless and painful. We force new Creeps

to go cold turkey from day one, but it’s more than simply filling their mouths with worms, bugs or maggots to quell the pain. Most new Creeps don’t even make it out of Nightmare Alley…too far gone. Others emerge from that hellhole thinking they’re cured, only to revert back to their animal selves the second they run out of earthworms. The goal is to kill the urge for live flesh altogether, which is a different kettle of fish. It involves retraining the head. Being dead, we obviously don’t need to eat, but convincing the brain otherwise takes time.

There are several steps in the program, but the early ones consist of new­age crap and primal scream therapy, which is intentional in order to weed­out the wannabes.

So long as there are no flesh­and­blood people around, lots of remaining newbies make it out of these early sessions.

But the problem is the living give off an aroma as mouth­watering as a bucket of KFC, so we keep a guy around for the sole purpose of testing the progress of new Creeps. His name is Roger, who’s still human, but so strung­out on heroin that he seldom has any idea where he is. All we gotta do is keep him high, stick him in an 48

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iron cage and release our patients into the same room.

Creeps thrown into a blood­sniffing frenzy are immediately destroyed, the ones who aren’t move on to the next step. Scott was one of the latter. He simply walked to the nearest corner and sat while others mindlessly tried to squeeze between the cage’s bars. Like me, Scott seemed to really want to be cured.

I watched from a distance during these sessions, further encouraged I might just win my bet with Nick.

Waiting in line in the commissary one day, Scott

turned to me. “How often do you go?”

“Topside? Often as I can.” I raised my tray and held it out. “Hit me, Gladys. Wednesday special.”

Cigarette dangling from her mouth, Gladys the Lunch Lady grunted as she unceremoniously plopped a scoop of maggots on my tray.

“Come on, sweetheart,” I chided with a wink. “I know you got some back there. Hook me up. I’ll get you a carton of Camels.”

“They better be unfiltered this time,” she said, ash dropping from the tip of her smoke as she turned around and opened a fridge. “’Cause these ain’t easy to come by.”

She pulled out an old Folgers can and pried off the lid.

“What’s that?” Scott asked.

“Spider egg sac. Sweet as Macadamia nuts.”

Using some tongs, Gladys placed a marble­sized white ball on my tray.

“Oh, come on, Gladys, don’t be such a tightwad. You want unfiltered? I want three.”

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“Jesus Christ, you’re killing me,” Gladys hissed as she fished out two more delectable sacs and bitterly dropped them by the first.

“I thought your next door neighbor did that already.”

“Ha ha, real fuckin’ funny.” Gladys aimed her scowl Scott’s way. “Whatta you want, kid?”

Scott smiled broadly. “Can I try a spider sac?”

“Ha!” Gladys flicked her cigarette away. “Unless that charming grin comes with a fifth o’ Jack Daniels, it’s mags or crawlers for ya.”

Scott humbly held up his tray. “Crawlers, please.”

Trays loaded, we found a nearby table and sat. Shaking salt on his worms, Scott looked around the commissary.

Other than Brad and Packy, seated at another table and having a good laugh over a new arrival they were forced to put down, the place was empty.

“Slow night,” Scott said. “So…you go up as often as you can? How often is that?”

“About once a week,” I replied before popping one of the spider sacs in my mouth. I sucked on it a bit, savoring the flavor, before biting down. “I can usually hang out up there around four or five hours before having to come back, but I was once out for almost eight.”

“Wow.” He twirled his fork into his plate of crawlers.

“When will I get a shot at it?”

“Whoa, Scotty, slow down. You’re making great progress, but don’t rush it.”

“But I heard Robby went topside for ten minutes, and I’ve been here longer than he has.”

I snorted. “Been talkin’ to Nick haven’t you? Robby ain’t been topside. In fact, they had to put him down 50

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yesterday.”

“Shit,” Scott said between bites. “I liked Robby.”

I aimed my own fork his way. “My point is this, man… just go through the steps. You’ll make it if you really want to. The only Creeps who ever make it topside are those who are able to purge the urge.” As I dug into my own meal, I added, “And for God’s sake, stop listening to Nick.

The guy‘s a douche bag.”

Scott slowly nodded and sighed. “Yeah, okay.”

I nodded at his plate. “How’re the crawlers?”

He sucked up a fat one, then smacked his lips. “Slimy… yet satisfying.”

I raised my glass. “Hakuna Matata, my friend.”

He giggled uncontrollably, which made me break out into laughter. I didn’t have the heart to tell him he was about to endure the worst part of the program.

When an infected human turns Creep, a weird kind of

amnesia sets in. It isn’t total; we’re still able to recall if we prefer Coke or Pepsi, the types of books we enjoy or who the president is. But the big stuff ­ who we are, people we know, things we’ve done ­ gets buried. Why else would anyone wake up with the urge to eat their mom, wife or kids? Once you succumb to being bitten, any feelings you once had for someone gives­way to insatiable hunger.

Hypnotherapy is used to drag those suppressed memories from the closet and into the light. We’re forced to recall the terrible things we've done to others ­ strangers and loved ones ­ in the name of hunger. It’s the last true gauge of whether or not any empathy remains in 51

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what’s left of our brains. Empathy is what separates us from the true monsters of the world, living or dead.

Hypnotherapy was when I was cruelly reminded that I bit out my fiancée’s throat less than a week after I proposed to her. I’d never felt such pain in my entire life. Yet I was one of the lucky ones; most Creeps who are dragged down here are already too far gone to feel anything. I clung to my pain like my life depended on it…because it did.

This was especially hard on Scott. One night, several months into the program, I was heading back to my room after catching a movie. Passing Scott’s room, I heard something I hadn’t heard since my father‘s funeral… …crying.

Not just crying, but long, remorseful sobs of despair.

Part of me rejoiced because it meant Scott was responding positively to the hypnotherapy, yet my heart also went out to him because I knew he was suffering unfathomable pain. Imagine how you’d feel if you went to a family reunion…everyone you’ve ever loved is there and you’re sincerely happy to see them, yet you whip out a pistol and start shooting them anyway. You’re fully aware what you’re doing is the worst thing imaginable, and your heart breaks with every squeeze of the trigger, yet a force you can’t control compels you to keep on killing until everyone is dead. That’s just a taste of what it’s like to have your memory restored during hypnotherapy.

I opened the door to Scott’s room. He was curled up on his cot, hands locked around his knees. A couple of empty worm bags lay crumpled on the floor. Guilt­munching… been there.

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“Hey, man,” I said, coming in and closing the door behind me. “How ya holding up?”

He regarded me with the saddest, wettest eyes I’d ever seen. “I…I…had a wife…and a daughter…” He squeezed his eyes tight, trying in vain to will the image from his head. “…Cassie. She cried 'No, Daddy' as I killed her mom right in front of her. And…and…when I went after her… she ran out of the apartment…screaming. Her daddy had become a monster…and that’s how she’ll think of me for the rest of her life!” Scott repeatedly slammed his forehead against the concrete wall by his cot. “No! No! No! No! No!” “Scott!” I barked as I lunged over and slapped my hand across his forehead to keep him from injuring himself further. He fell apart in my arms, blubbering into my chest.

“I wanna die,” he sobbed. “I wanna really die.”

“I know,” I soothed him, stroking his hair. “I know. I’ve been there…I know.” Actually, that was sort­of a lie. Sure, I regret killing my fiancée, but can’t imagine how it feels knowing you tried to eat your own kid. I felt a little inadequate trying to consol him. “At least Cassie’s alive, right?”

Scott quickly nodded, still blubbering.

“I know this may not mean much right now, but this is a good thing…your pain, your regret. You aren’t a monster.

You wouldn't still be here if you were. Trust me, you need to hold onto this pain and use it. If you can do that, you can do anything.”

We sat there on his cot for awhile, totally wordless, the only sound being Scott’s subsiding sobs into my shirt.

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After what must have been a half­hour, he finally raised his head and looked up at me with a slight smile.

“Hypnotherapy is a bitch.”

I chuckled and patted his back, relieved he was working his way through the anguish. “Yeah, no shit.”

“You wanna know something funny I discovered during hypnotherapy?”

“Sure.”

He self­consciously snorted and looked up at me. “It turns out my name really is Scott…Scott Slater.”

I laughed aloud. What were the odds of that?

“Here,” I said, digging into my pocket. “I wanna show you something.” I tugged out a dollar­sized coin and held it up. On the heads' side was a smiley face; the inscription on the tails' side read Empathy + Willpower = Redemption.

Scott plucked it from my hand and turned it over in his fingers. “What is it?”

“My Victory Chip. It’s what Creeps receive when they graduate the program. It means the world to me. This is your goal. This is what will let you regain at least a small part of normal life.”

“You mean going topside.”

I nodded. “You’ll never fit completely back into normal society. They won’t have us. But we can be among them for short periods at night, take in a movie or ball game now and then. Have a beer or two in a quiet little bar. It ain’t much of a life, but it’s better than the alternative.”

Scott quickly sat up, regarding me hopefully. “And Cassie? I could see her again?”

I abruptly snapped my Victory Chip away, stuffed it 54

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back into my pocket and stared at him sternly. “Absolutely not, Scott. For your own sake, let that shit go right now.

You can have a life down here in Creeptown...a good one, but not your old one.”

I slowly stood and headed toward the door. Scott sighed, looking dejected.

Holding my thumb and index finger less than an inch apart, I looked down at him. “You’ve come a long way, Scott, and you’re this close to the end. You need to cling to that as though your life depends on it.” Because it does, I refrained from adding.

As he progressed, Scott was permitted more freedom

around Creeptown. Even then, I could almost always find him in the Multiplex during his free time. Turns out the guy was a big time Mystery Science Theater 3000 fan and loved nothing more than turning the sound down and adding his own irreverent dialogue. He eventually developed a tiny fan­base of fellow Creeps who’d show up every Saturday night when he’d pop in an old Scooby­Doo video, his childhood favorite, then proceed to improvise all the dialogue. Others soon joined in on the fun, each taking a specific role. But Scott was always Scooby; his impression of that stupid dog was spot­on. I never cared much for cartoons, and even though I never partook in the festivities, Scott and his cohorts made me laugh my ass off every weekend. I never missed one of their ‘shows.’

Scott was coming along very well. I was as proud of him as a parent whose child just made Honor Roll. In my opinion, he was ready for the last step…venturing 55

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topside.

I stated my case to Larry, the de­facto mayor of Creeptown. I told him of Scott’s determination to beat the addiction, his remarkable progress, his leadership around the complex, particularly during Scooby­Doo Saturdays. I even went as far as to suggest he’d be a great sponsor someday.

“Think so, huh?” Larry replied with healthy skepticism, having seen at least 80% of all new Creeps crash and burn over the years.

“Larry, the kid didn’t even react when stuck in the same room with Roger. His hypnotherapy sessions devastated him, so I have no doubt about his empathy. Hell, he just laughed it off when Hobbs pinned a Playboy centerfold on the door to his room the other day.”

Larry chuckled. “Hobbs still does that? How’s he get those things down here, anyway?”

“I’m convinced Scott could sit on a city bus filled with naked women slathered in barbecue sauce and wouldn't notice.”

He eyed me intently. “You’re that convinced, huh?

When were you thinking of going?”

“This Thursday, around three in the morning. Shouldn’t be too many folks out at that time. It’d be the perfect test run.”

Larry paused, rubbing his chin as he always did when trying to look deep in thought. Then he finally threw up his hands, “What the hell, why not? If he’s half the star pupil you say he is, I’m willing to give it a shot.” He leveled a steady finger at me. “Just make sure you go through all the preliminaries. No half­assed shit…and 56

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bring your tools, just in case.”

When I told Scott the news, he could barely contain

himself. He jumped, danced and clapped like a little kid.

His exuberance was contagious; I wanted to dance along with him, but forced myself to grip his shoulders and keep him focused.

“Now remember,” I sternly said. “This is a test run.

We’re just gonna take a walk through the park and that’s it…twenty minutes max. And we’re gonna do this by the book. You do what I say, when I say.”

Scott nodded quickly, though he was so overcome with joy, I doubt he heard anything I said.

On Thursday around 2:45 AM, I knocked on Scott’s

door, and could see the nervous anticipation in his face when he answered. He nodded to the backpack hanging from my shoulder.

“What’s that?”

I shrugged off the backpack and let it drop to the floor.

“Never mind. You about ready?”

“You know it!” He wore a grin that threatened to swallow his entire face. “Let’s go.”

“Not just yet,” I said as I fished a can of Axe body spray from my backpack. Popping off the cap, I sprayed it in his face. As he raised his hands, winced and coughed, I shot his crotch, armpits and torso.

“Jesus Christ!” he spat, fanning the mist as I continued to douse him. “What the fuck are you doing?”

“Precaution,” I replied, spraying myself thoroughly 57

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before recapping the can and returning it to my backpack.

“In case you haven’t noticed, we Creeps don’t smell too good after awhile.”

“Yeah, but Axe?” “Would you rather smell like a nightclubbing douche bag or a rotting corpse?”

After blowing a few snot rockets from his nostrils, Scott conceded, “Yeah, that makes sense.”

We stayed in his dorm until it was time. He sat as patiently as his antsy body would allow, sometimes hopping up to nervously pace the room. I couldn’t blame him. I was the same way waiting for my turn to finally go topside.

After traversing long, dark and dank tunnels Scott had been previously denied access too, we arrived at the base of a rusty ladder leading to the surface. A bug­stained bulb was our only light.

“Here we are,” I announced. “You got your ammo?”

Scott reached into his jacket, pulling out a freezer bag stuffed with beefy nightcrawlers. He nervously smiled.

“I’ve never been more scared in my life.”

I slapped his back. “Hey, buddy, I wouldn’t be here tonight if I didn’t think you could do it. Just remember, when your gut starts to hurt…” I nodded at his bag. “just pop a few of those bad boys in your mouth and you’ll be okay.” I readjusted my backpack and grabbed the first rung of the ladder leading up. “You ready?”

Scott fumbled open the freezer bag and pulled out a worm. It squirmed in protest as he sucked it into his 58

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mouth. “I am now.”

I led the way as we ascended into a pitch­black concrete tube leading to the surface. Fortunately, I’d taken this route enough times to know when we had reached the manhole cover without hitting my head. Using my shoulder, I pushed up and slowly lifted the lid. The full moon suddenly made me squint. Shoving the cover aside, careful not to let it clank too loudly on the pavement, I glanced up and down the street, allowing my eyes to adjust to the natural light. I eyeballed the single streetlamp overhead; broken, just like always. Once a week, someone always came up to make sure it stayed broken; the darker the street, the easier we could come and go undetected.

To my left was Laurelhurst Park, six square blocks surrounding a pond where people came to feed ducks during the day. Aside from the moon’s reflection on the water, I spotted no movement. Looked like the whole city was sleeping.

I leaped out, then urged Scott to hurry up and join me before we were seen. It wouldn’t look too good for someone to round the corner and see two grey­skinned corpses slinking up from the depths.

Scott and I quickly replaced the street cover, scurried off the road and into the park, ducking behind some nearby bushes lining a jogging path. We sat for several seconds in the dirt, eyes and ears wide open. All we heard was cricket song and a distant siren. I looked over at Scott. He frowned, clutching his stomach as he raised his head, sniffing the air.

“You okay?” I whispered.

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“People,” he replied as he opened his bag and downed a worm. “I can smell them.”

“Yeah, I know. Probably sleeping with their windows open.” I patted his knee. “Just ignore it. You’ll be okay.”

Scott nodded, fished another night crawler from the bag and popped it in his mouth, chewing noisily.

I craned my head out of the brush, checking out the path in both directions. Aside from a squirrel darting up a nearby tree with a nut in its mouth, the park looked empty.

“Come on,” I said, sucking down a worm from my own bag before leaving the bushes.

Scott quickly followed, eyes darting about wildly. He shoved a wad of worms in his mouth with one hand, massaged his gut with the other.

“Go easy on those, Scott. You gotta make ‘em last.”

“I know,” he weakly replied. “But that smell is so strong.

I wasn’t expecting that.”

“You wanna go back? We can try this another day.

There’s no shame in­” “No, I’ll be okay.” He glanced at me with grim determination. “I gotta do this sometime, right?”

We should’ve turned back right then, but my faith in Scott outweighed my apprehension, so I nodded. “Try not to breathe. I know it’s a hard habit to break, but it’ll help.

If you do feel the need to breathe, do it through you’re mouth.”

I had to admit the smell of people was stronger than usual tonight. My own gut panged on occasion, but I was used to it.

We walked slowly down the path, taking in the cool 60

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night air, always a refreshing change of pace from the dank, musty confines of Creeptown. I made occasional small talk while Scott gravely kept stride alongside, chowing down a worm now and then. I could see he was in pain, and hoped distracting him with banter would help. It didn’t seem to.

“I love this place,” I mused after several moments of silent strolling. “I know some Creeps like to go where the action is, but I­” “God, don’t you smell it?” Scott cried. “This is harder than I thought.”

I gripped his arm, which was trembling, and hissed, “Then stop breathing, dammit!”

We managed to walk a few more feet before Scott yelped in pain and doubled over, grabbing his stomach. I crouched by his side and wrapped an arm around him.

“I’m not!” he wailed. “But I can still feel them!”

“Eat some worms. Where’s your bag?”

Scott looked at me with shame and moaned helplessly as he held up his empty freezer bag.

“Christ, I told you to ration those!” I looked around to see if Scott’s moaning had awoken any neighbors. “What happened, man? You didn’t act like this when you were in the room with Roger.”

“That was different,” he cried. “He stunk like booze, smack and shit.”

I pulled a few nightcrawlers from my own bag and plugged them into his mouth one at a time. He devoured them greedily, then slowly stood. Eyeing me apologetically, he said, “I’m okay now. I think I can go on.”

“Tell you what,” I replied. “let’s head back and try this 61

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again another night.” I gave him a reassuring pat on the back. “So what if you ain’t quite ready yet. Not a big deal­” I heard the click of footsteps behind us, along with the unmistakable scent of meat. Scott yelped again, grabbing his midsection and dropping to his knees. I quickly wheeled around to face a lone, portly police officer, hand on his holster as he cautiously regarded us.

Scott plopped his butt to the ground and buried his head in his hands.

“What’s wrong with your friend there?” the officer asked suspiciously.

I forced a chuckle and took a protective step forward.

“A few too many tequila shots, I’m afraid.”

The cop studied my face, squinting in the dark. “You both look a little bit sick. You guys okay?”

“Yeah, of course.”

The cop exhaled and let go of his holster. “Well, you guys need to move along. Go home and sleep it off. Park’s closed.”

“Mmmmmm,” Scott purred behind me before inhaling deeply. “sweet meat.”

I looked back. Scott was standing again, staring at the cop ravenously. A string of drool dangled from his mouth.

“Scott!” I hissed. “No!” “Just a little,” he cooed. “Just to kill the pain.”

“I said no!”

“What the hell is he on?” the cop demanded uneasily, unfastening his holster and gripping the butt of his gun.

“Nothing, officer.” I rushed at Scott. He tried to pull away, but I managed to grab his shoulder and keep him in 62

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place. “We’ll be on our way now.”

“Just a hand,” Scott said with a delirious grin. “or a foot. No one will ever know.” He started toward the cop, who drew his pistol and aimed it at Scott’s chest. It took all my strength to hold Scott back.

“Freeze!” the cop roared, more than a bit freaked out.

“Both of you!”

Scott looked at me, eyes hungry and crazed. “Let’s eat him! You an’ me! You know you wanna! I won’t tell!”

“Scott!” I yelled, grabbing both sides of his head. “Don’t give in! You can beat it! You’re strong!”

Scott was strong. He broke from my grasp and charged at the cop, howling hungrily. The cop fired. The shot was deafening. Scott’s chest exploded, but he didn’t slow down. He kept lurching forward, arms outstretched.

Wide­eyed with horror, the cop turned and ran. Scott gave chase, hooting giddily.

“Goddammit!” I stammered, opening my backpack and hoisting out an axe. I joined the chase, hoping to get to Scott in time.

He was gaining on his quarry. Of course, being dead, he had the advantage of never getting winded. The cop, on the other hand, wasn’t in great shape to start with. Even as I chased the two of them through the dark, I could see his belly shake like St. Nick’s. Too many bearclaws, I guess.

Finally, the cop went down. With lightning agility, Scott closed the gap and dragged him to the ground like a sacked quarterback. The two wrestled and rolled before Scott managed to pin him down.

“Scott!” I cried as I caught up to them, tightly gripping 63

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the axe. “Don’t!”

Scott straddled the screaming cop and roared, “Soup’s on!” He managed to grab a flailing, meaty arm. His jaws mindlessly gnashed as he prepared to dig in.

Without hesitating, I swung the axe like a baseball bat, lopping off Scott’s head with one stroke. It landed on the pavement with a wet plop and rolled into some nearby bushes.

The cop kept screaming, staring in bug­eyed horror as Scott’s headless body retained its grip on his arm. I expertly severed the hands. Grabbing a fistful of jacket, I pulled the body away. The legs kicked in protest. I hacked them off, too. The last thing I needed was a blind Creep running around the park.

I dropped the torso to the ground, where it writhed like the worms in my bag. The cop continued to shriek. I looked over and saw two severed hands still gripping the man's forearm. From the bushes, Scott's head wheezed and cried.

I dropped the axe and knelt by the cop, trying to hold him still while I pried the undead hands from his arm, one finger at a time. Then I grabbed him by his shirt and yanked him to his feet. Painful hunger suddenly stabbed my gut. Christ, I shouldn’t have touched him, because I briefly wanted to spill his innards as much as Scott did.

Instead, I sucked up the last of my willpower and shoved him away, just as I was hit with another crippling cramp.

“Go!” I grunted as I hunched over in pain. “Go now!

While you still can!”

He needed no convincing, turning away and bolting into the night. I sighed with relief, but didn’t relax. It 64

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wouldn’t be long before Officer Bearclaw returned with back­up.

With trembling hands, I grabbed my worm bag, pulled it open and stuffed as many night crawlers in my mouth as I could. As I swallowed, the pain began to subside.

“You still here?” Scott rasped from the bushes. With no lungs, he struggled to speak above a wheezy whisper.

“Yeah,” I replied weakly, tugging a big black Hefty bag from my backpack and shaking it open. “I’m here, Scott.”

“I let you down.”

I bent over, picked up his two fidgeting hands and tossed them into the bag. “Nah…it’s not easy being a Creep. You did good.”

“Then you forgive me?”

“Nothing to forgive, my friend.” I hoisted the legs, one at a time, and stuffed them in with the severed hands.

“Shoulda seen the signs. We shoulda gone back. The blame’s on me.”

“I tried. I really tried.”

I tied the bag shut and dropped it to the ground. The still­kicking legs made it jiggle and quiver like an amoeba.

“I know you did, man.” I produced another bag and, like a pillow case, pulled it over Scott’s torso. Then I ventured into the brush, nudging aside leaves and branches until I was face­to­face with his head. He sadly smiled as tears rolled down his cheeks.

“What’ll happen to me now?” he asked, spitting dirt from his mouth.

I sighed and patted his head. “Gotta dispose of you, my friend.”

He closed his eyes, pursing his lips. “At least I didn’t 65

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hurt anyone.”

“That’s right.” I carefully picked up his head and looked him in the eye. “You didn’t.”

“And I’ll never hurt anyone ever again, will I?” I shook my head. “Never again.”

“Then could you find Cassie and let her know? Let her know Daddy’s not a monster? Let her know Daddy will never hurt anyone ever again? Could you do that for me?”

As I held his head in my hands, he stared up at me with the same remorseful eyes which made me agree to sponsor him in the first place. Goddamn you, Scott! You know I can’t do that!

“Of course,” I replied before dropping his head in the bag with his torso. He looked up at me and grinned. I smiled back, then dug into my pocket to pull out my Victory Chip, tossing it into the bag. “You earned this.”

“Thanks,” he wheezed.

I closed the bag and tied it shut. After taking another quick look around the park, I gathered both bags and dragged them to the pond. I was pretty sure there were plenty of rocks at the bottom big enough to keep him submerged.

Scott began to croak the Scooby­Doo theme, sounding like Rod Stewart with laryngitis. Not knowing the actual words, I simply hummed along with him as I stepped into the water.

Dave Anderson, has had two young adult novels published by Echelon Press (Killer Cows & Shaken) under the name of D.M Anderson. He also has a third book, With the Wicked, a collection of dark adult tales, due to be published in 2014. In addition, his short stories have appeared (or soon will appear) in 69 Flavors of 66

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Paranoia, Night Terrors, Trembles, Infernal Ink and an upcoming StrangeHouse Books anthology.

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TARGET PRACTICE

by Geoff Nelder

Chang stared at the potato­shaped Defoe. It took a

month of intensive training and two years flight to meet up with the asteroid. If they’d met it five years previously then flying a dense­ballasted vessel alongside would have provided enough gravitational force to deflect it from Earth, but there was not enough time. Instead, Chang and Wen had glued to it a Morph Energy field shifter – a kind of quasi mini black hole – powered by pocket fusion.

Clean, limited, no fragmentation, and the asteroid had instantly deflected away from its path of turning the American Prairies into a crater.

The director had said, “Get this right and you will be heroes. Make a mistake and instead of obliterating soy farms, you wipe out Shanghai, don’t bother coming home.”

Now, that mistake was happening. Chang’s stomach churned in disbelief. Sweat dripped between his shoulder blades. The asteroid, having been turned, was redirecting itself back on course. Now it was unlikely to hit empty farmland, but somewhere else. He glanced at Wen playing invisible piano with her console. She looked over, caught him spying.

She didn’t display annoyance. “Obviously, the ME has failed. I’ll go see what the problem is.”

Chang waved his own fingers at the screen. “Remotes don’t show a failure. All green.”

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“How do you know your sensors aren’t faulty?”

“Wen, you know they were checked n times.”

“Perhaps the fault in the energy field is corrupting feedback. Disengage it. There’s clearly a problem.”

Chang knuckled his forehead as if that would alleviate a growing headache. “Human error, and you’ll say it’s mine.”

“Nice of you to agree.” She floated to the helmet locker.

Chang didn’t see why Wen had to go EVA. He toyed with the notion of sending out a drone to reset the ME but it might be faulty and warp an energy field around Wen. She could be squeezed into another dimension. He shouldn’t, but couldn’t help smiling.

They should inform Wutang mission control of the initial success, followed by the failure but it would take an hour for them to receive, two for a decision, then another for their reply. It would interfere with bedtime, and Wen might have fixed it by then. Even so, his ignoring of procedure niggled. What would Wen say?

We were chosen for this mission for our ability to make pragmatic, optimal decisions. Probably.

She returned.

Helmet stowed, Wen shook her black hair into submission. “Nothing serious. Some of the glue had broken away and blocked part of the ME array.”

Chang frowned at her. “Really? I don’t see how that–” “That’s your problem, Chang, no imagination.”

“Let’s reactivate it and see if the beast will stay away this time.”

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His fingers tapped out the activation sequence. Energy waves pulsed from the planted device, pushing the rock off its collision course.

Wen grinned. ”Let’s celebrate. A cup of Choujiu?”

“All right, but pity it isn’t rice wine.”

“We aren’t allowed alcohol. If you want hallucinogenic experiences, Chang, stick your head out the window.”

“Put that Choujiu away, Wen,” “Why should I?” “Defoe is returning.”

“No!” “See for yourself. This time, Wen, we’ll use the drone to remove that one, and use the back up.”

Wen deflated like a punctured tyre. “There’s no need to remove the first ME, just glue the back up next to it. A few centimetres won’t make any difference; it should clear Earth.”

Two hours later they both sat with faces longer than bee hoon noodles as Defoe moved away and then realigned itself to hit Earth.

Chang threw up his hands. “We’d better tell them. For one thing they’ll need to recalculate the target.”

“By the time our message gets to Wutang, they’ll have detected the changes. What are they going to tell us?”

“We’re sacked?” Chang thought of the shame he’d brought to his family.

“Idiot. They’ll tell us to go to plan B.” He lowered his brows at her, wondering why he had the hots for her when she continually rubbished him. Did he find her a challenge, or does she use abuse as a cover...

That would be it.

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“Wen, plan B is a good one. Annihilate it. We have the munitions.”

“Trust you to chime in with the official line, but think of one rock becoming thousands.”

Chang bristled with the barb. He liked to think he had a measure of independence. “All right, let’s hear plan C, or shall we skip straight to a plan D?” “Activate both Morph Energy shifters.”

Chang waved his hands apart. “But what if we destroy ourselves using two MEs? Sacred Worm, the asteroid might continue while we are vaporised. Unbearable shame.”

Wen shook her head at him. “Activate.”

For a while it worked. Sadly, the asteroid enjoyed

flouting the rules. It wasn’t the sight of it moving back on its Earth­bound course at which Chang stared, but the red vector lines on the screen. A nagging feeling tugged at him, urging him to go EVA himself.

Wen objected. “There’s no need.”

Chang pointed at the wayward line. “There is need.

Perhaps one of the MEs is malfunctioning and a simple manual toggle is all that’s needed.”

“No. The trick we’ve missed is in applied mechanics.”

“What?” Chang knew that Wen had firsts in astrophysics and mechanics, but he smelled more than noodles in the air.

Wen smiled her perfect teeth but they failed to comfort him. “Activating the MEs has given the asteroid initial impetus but its inertia and our mass drew it back. Give 71

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the wave pulses time to exert themselves. You’ve not slept for thirty hours, take a zedtab.”

“Nor have you. Ah, you can cope while I can’t.”

He stayed suited but for helmet, and after a swallow, reclined his seat. “Good night, Wen.”

On the dot of four hours Chang woke with one

thought. “First Contact!”

Wen looked up from her console. “The miracle of sleep.”

“But this is momentous. We’re well into the twenty­second century and have probed into the Goldilocks zone of a million systems with nothing coming back.”

Wen waved her hands. “So, here it is and they’re trying to smash Earth.”

“With just one pokey little asteroid?”

“Target practice.”

Chang shook his head. “I can believe that our first encounter with aliens might be their eagerness to purge us before we contaminate the rest of the universe, but...”

“A big bomb could be in that tiny package, or a deadly sting.”

“Consider this – it’s travelling at thirty­three Mach but now we know it is programmed or directed, so–” “It might slow enough to land gently in Tiananmen Square and say ‘nín hǎo’? In your dreams.”

Chang wagged his finger and quoted, “Cowards have dreams, brave men have visions.”

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She pointed a finger back at him. “Are you brave?

Sufficient to fly alongside this beast all the way? What if it doesn’t slow down?”

Chang took a deep breath, reached for a raspberry chewbar – it tasted of boiled egg. “Tough call. I might be wrong. I want to go EVA and check it out myself this time.”

“Go ahead, but you won’t find a driver’s seat and steering wheel. You haven’t asked...”

More games. “Asked what? Oh, Wutang have discovered the ME failures from telemetry. What do they say?”

“Twenty hours. If we haven’t turned it by then, Chang, try and destroy it.”

He stood, grabbed his helmet, floated over to the airlock, chewed more, and wondered how, after all these years, they couldn’t get the flavours right.

Outside he was surprised that Defoe was so far away.

There it was, the first alien artefact, looking like a pink potato against black velvet and its tray of diamonds. He kept forgetting to breathe.

“Chang, you lost? I can’t see you.”

“Taking in the view. On my way now. One second burst, like you said.”

“Make lateral adjustments. Don’t take too long, we might have a problem here.”

Hah, he’d bet there was no problem. She didn’t like the idea of him finding something she missed.

Close up, the pink was inescapable, surreal. It was pockmarked and striated. He drifted – a weird sensation when he knew he matched the asteroid’s 25,000 mph.

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around in case another asteroid lurked nearby, with perhaps an alien wave pulse machine. Nothing, unless it was made of dark matter, cloaked.

“Hey, Wen, scan the vicinity for anomalies. Not just visible. And we’ll scan again when we re­activate the MEs.” “Come back, Chang. The console’s malfunctioning, I can’t be sure the MEs won’t kick in by error and you shouldn’t be nearby.”

Bluff again.

He examined Defoe more carefully for an inspection panel but considering the technological advances on Earth since 2100, suppose the aliens reached quantum engineering a million years ago? He was thinking a control panel might pop open at a particular radio frequency, but the aliens would be far beyond such primitive tech. The asteroid is probably sentient, rewriting Robinson Crusoe.

He drifted around to the Morph Energy field shapers.

On Earth it was considered the cleverest invention since sliced rice cake, but to the aliens it would be as a flint scraper. He edged closer. Something was wrong.

“Chang, look over to your right.”

His mind knew not to fall for it but his head rotated on auto. He saw nothing of immediate danger. One star must be a planet. Yes, it displayed bands of agate.

“Jupiter?” He turned back to the first ME. A frozen shard of glue had become lodged in a wave focus element.

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“No, I needed you to see the speck of blue, ten degrees to the right of Jupiter. I did a vicinity scan. It might be a meteor, spaceship or...”

“It’s not visible, Wen, even with stochastic function enabled.” He ignored her reply and examined the backup ME. No green light. Dead. Perhaps the initial burst of energy shook a power unit out, but that would’ve been detected by Wen from the ship. It was obvious that this sentient potato had disabled Earth’s best efforts at sophistication. Even so, perhaps he could reactivate the MEs. Wen’s voice became higher pitched and broke through his barrier. “Return now, Chang, life support going.”

Could be she wasn’t lying. He turned back. A couple of squirts set him on course for The Long Road, which – reflecting the weak sun and starlight – looked like a silver porcupine, frozen, lifeless. Not a single light could be seen. Good, otherwise it would mean an energy leak.

While on his drift, he twisted round to look back at Defoe, to absorb something created who knows when, by who knows who, except they were alien. Yet, they were approaching Earth, to make friends, or to destroy?

Then the other, darker, option occurred to him. It had lurked in his psyche like a misfortune cookie waiting to be opened. Defoe wasn’t an alien artefact at all. Somehow, the MEs were malfunctioning. Perhaps a manufacturing defect – no time for it to have been field tested. Or, by chance, the asteroid contained natural elements that disrupted human engineering.

“Wen, I know. Just wait till I reach you.”

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Lights blinded Chang when he came within thirty metres of the hatch. Ten minutes later he de­suited. When the inner hatch opened he was hit by a wall of heat.

Now he appreciated Wen’s life support problem, and joked, “I should have left the outside door open to cool us down.”

Wen had disrobed – down to her primrose yellow undergarments, already perspiration­damp.

He wiped his forehead with his hand and tried to dry it on his shorts. “What is it?”

“Forty Celsius. Do your thing with the LSS, and hurry before the computers overheat.”

He leaned over his console, frowned, and simply adjusted the temperature back to twenty. “We need to talk.”

She stepped back. “It’s not what you think.”

“Really?” How would she know he’d deduced the asteroid had disruptive properties?

She sank to her knees, head down. “They made me do it.”

“Do what?”

“You know – out there.” She looked up at him with wet brown eyes.

“What on the Emperor’s aunt are you talking about?

That rock is natural and the MEs failed because... just a moment.” His thoughts roller­coasted. Yes, the rock might have unfamiliar properties but though the MEs could be knocked out, the asteroid had redirected itself to head for Earth both times – three times including before they reached here. Someone had to do that, alien he’d supposed, then rejected, so it was human. The only other 76

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human within seven hundred million kilometres, besides him, was confessing something, she’d assumed he knew, and he should have known.

“You tampered with the MEs, and redirected Defoe back to Earth. How did you do that? Use a tractor beam? It doesn’t matter – but WHY?” His stomach quivered, like when Mai­Li accused him of cheating on her. The tremor built up into an acid reflux and his face heated. “They’ll know by now though, at Wutang. The vid and telemetry links.”

Wen unfolded from the floor and stood next to her console. Her snarl and contorted smile reminded him of a Wicked Witch. “Wutang have no idea. The feeds have been down since we arrived.”

He accessed his console with sweaty fingers, bringing up comms. She was right. Many incoming but no feeds, no replies. Wutang would be able to detect their presence, and that Defoe remained more­or­less on course. It should be a simple matter to enable the comms link.

“Wen, I’m going to let them know we’re safe but that the asteroid can be deflected, or destroyed by us.”

“No!” She lunged at his hands.

He turned his back on her but didn’t hit the comms key – he needed time to think. His voice shook.

“Don’t be an idiot Wen. If they think we’re disabled they’ll send up a rock buster.”

“That’s just it. DragonSlayers wasn’t given the contract.

There are none that could do the job. Ironic isn’t it that twentieth century nuclear bombs would’ve been able to obliterate Defoe but the treaties have scrapped them all.”

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“So, this is about giving Earth a black eye so the DragonSlayers have a future? You work for them?”

“Defoe was only going to crater unpopulated farmland.”

Chang boiled. “I’m telling them.”

“They’ll execute us.”

“I’ll tell them there was a malfunction but we’re fixing it. Forget DragonSlayers.”

“No.” Chang fell forward as something kicked into the back of his knees. He turned to face her as he floundered.

“I think it might be possible, hare­brained Chang, for you to have an EVA accident.”

His ears must be on slow­mo because he couldn’t believe them.

Upright, he stamped with legs bent and apart, as in his speciality – Hung Gar, and opened his hand, whose fingers flexed with twice the strength of any practised strangler. Wen burst into a laugh and produced a slim knife. Weapons weren’t allowed on board, but no one could prevent unscrupulous ingenuity.

“You think this is a simple knife? Sorry to disappoint.”

She lunged at him, but he was ready and leapt to his right, hitting at her hand as he flew past.

Wen didn’t drop the knife, twisted, and Chang’s bare shins burned. He looked aghast at a reddening weal, with a whiff of cooking meat sending him into shock. It wasn’t a knife but a cauterizing tool. Unequal odds. This wasn’t wushu.

She’d gained confidence and held the tool out in front while crouching towards him.

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Chang let his eyes perform a war inventory. Almost nothing could be used. He leapt away and into the galley, fighting to keep control in micro gravity. Through the hatchway he punched a command for coffee, then dived for the cutlery drawer. This was no ordinary kitchen. The three polymer knives, spoons and chopsticks were instantly cleaned after each use. They would bend and snap under pressure. There were no pans as such. Not even a long­handled noodle strainer in space. Only one item had barely changed over centuries.

As a sharp point burned his neck, he grabbed the fire extinguisher off the wall. Bludgeon or spray. He chose the latter – Halon gas jetted at Wen. She was surprised, coughed, but remained unharmed.

Chang brought the extinguisher down hard on her wrist making her drop the blade. He tried to kick it away but he stubbed his naked toe on a floor strut. She bent down but he pushed her over and while bear­hugging her, kicked against the wall sending them both flying back into the cockpit. She was much stronger than he expected, and oiled with perspiration, they revolved while wrestling.

Neither tried to land blows because they struggled to hold on to each other. Conversation came in out­of­breath grunts. Chang’s head banged on the deck and the bolt­on furniture, as did hers. They sprang apart.

She hurled a plastic storage box at him. He ducked while wondering how she’d wrenched it off the wall. It crashed into his console. Not glass but it fractured and died. The cabin was being trashed. Much more and they’d have no controls to steer home. The fight tumbled into the galley again, and he grabbed the hot coffee and threw 79

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it at her. Missed. Coffee droplets continued their journey into the cockpit.

After a few minutes of hectic thrashing, hugging face to face on the floor, they slowed to a stop. Panting, with his chest heaving, fighting for breath, and adrenalin doing its best to enforce fight since flight was out of the question, he discovered something unexpected. There’s a fine line between anger and lustful passion. Her smile agreed although he had to keep thinking it could be a ploy, but one he could enjoy.

She gasped – genuinely out of breath, “Why not? A kind of concupiscence truce for ten minutes?”

He admitted to himself that lust had taken over logic but they only lived this life once. Rotating and coupling about more than one axis, they grappled again, but with more relief than anger.

After a few moments, he asked, “Can we extend the truce, there’s only a few seconds of it left?”

“Let’s have tea for a change. There’s Dragon Well in the galley. I’ll be back. Promise you won’t do anything?” She flicked her eyes at her console.

In the tiny dorm he pulled off his rags and ionic­scrubbed. He pulled on new underwear and found a tunic for Wen. All the time he kept his ears and eyes on alert in case the mad woman found her berserkness again.

He sat heavily, as much as one could, on a fixed stool.

What a fool he’d been, at every juncture, including the last lustful one, although it had stopped her attack. For now. He needed to appease her. At least he’d secreted her weapon. Locker 15c – Velcro assortments.

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She was still in the galley, her naked back to him, tea brewed, almond cookies cooling. The way she tilted her hips brought on another stirring, but he used brains to quell it.

He placed the tunic over her shoulders and took the plastic cup, and a cookie.

“Poison by cyanide?” he said, then smiled.

“I’m certain we can work something else out.”

Chang wasn’t sure he wanted something worked out.

He wanted a resolution to this asteroid problem then get back to his life. Sadly, he knew that wasn’t going to happen. Some events were life­changing and this was one.

He wished, now, that she’d do up her tunic. She glanced down following his gaze and grinned. “Why don’t you come into this with me? You’d be rich.”

“Just supposing I agreed, how would we explain – ah, I already have – the potato blighted our MEs. Our munitions would disintegrate it.”

“It might not work, and make matters worse. Anyway, Chang, it wouldn’t suit my employer for the asteroid not to hit.”

“I suppose not.”

Side by side they looked at Defoe on her screen. Wen broke the silence. “We could let them know we were still trying things and Defoe had jammed our radio until we found a way around it. We’d travel in parallel all the way to Earth.”

“Yes,” Chang said, “then as soon as it was close enough to please DragonSlayers, giving them certainty of future contracts, we get rid of it. Right?”

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“Are you sure we can?”

“By using our fission munitions, feeble though they are, we can use both MEs, once repaired, to deflect the larger fragments.”

She smiled at his compliance. “Or use the MEs to aim the asteroid at an unpopulated spot.”

They were supposed to have an induced sleep for the two­year journey home, as they did en route – it saved resources and stopped them becoming psychotic but now they had to try and repair the sabotaged MEs. After two months he was confident one Morph Energy field shaper worked to forty percent optimal. Not enough to deflect Defoe as originally planned but it might push it away to be a near miss.

He tried a ruse. “Wen, how about us staggering our sleep.”

His rude awakening shocked him. Reluctant ears heard

his name yelled as a repeated echo. Sandy eyes creaked open to see wide eyes accusing him of having a lie in.

“Get up, Chang. There’s a month to impact. I’ve already given you a sunrise upper. You’ve to get the MEs to direct Defoe away from built up areas. I’ve plotted the most–” “Any chance of breakfast first? And not that bamboo shoot slop you gave me last time. I’m not a panda.”

His ‘stimulated’ body awoke quickly and without a hangover, but it didn’t mean he was ready to speed­dial his brain to program the MEs. Chang downloaded the data from Earth. By chance the asteroid’s new landing spot was Antarctica. No large 82

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populations, no oceans to create tsunamis, just a stony desert and a tiny ice cap. Chang didn’t need to do anything. If he tried to destroy or divert Defoe, it could result in catastrophe.

Chang couldn’t help smiling. What a result.

He reached for his tea and slurped up through the straw. “Wen, this is excellent.”

“Just breakfast green.”

“Not the tea. The asteroid will be destroyed so your sabotage handiwork won’t be discovered. The world will think it’s all down to our efforts. We’ll be heroes, riches will be bestowed, not only do I not need to join your friends at DragonSlayers, but you can ignore them too.”

“No, I can’t. Nor can you.”

Chang’s eyebrows rocketed. “Come on, Wen. Ah, you have investments, but more... threats. Not to you – I can’t see that working – but to your family?”

She pointed a finger. “Not a word.”

“I don’t need to be part of this charade. I’m free of it, now Defoe has a safe bull’s­eye.”

He stretched, yawned and went back to sleep.

“Chang, wake up you dolt.”

“I’ve had a nightmare.”

“Something bad has happened. Here’s some water.”

Icy water splashed in his face and a beaker of it was thrust into his hand.

“Yes, I’ll get up, no more showers, please.”

His eyes widened when he watched the data scroll on the console.

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Wen interpreted. “It’s accelerating and far in excess of what we should expect from Earth’s gravitational force.”

“About ten times faster. Already doing fifty Mach.”

“I know, Chang, I’ve had to make The Long Road match its acceleration.”

He used his handheld rather than lean across to use her console. “But we can’t keep up with it for much longer, or– ” “I know. That’s why I woke you. Wutang is going ballistic.”

Chang scratched his head. The cabin vibrated.

“Navigation will tell us when to adjust vectors for going into orbit.”

“Already interrogated it. Just one hour ten from now.”

“Good. We should make an effort to use the ME on the asteroid. I wonder if focussing in on itself might disintegrate Defoe from the inside. Also using our own ME to slow it.”

Wen shook her head while fluttering her fingers on the console. “Not thought of the first but no time. Already tried the tractor beam idea but it made no difference except to slow ourselves. You can guess why Wutang is upset, can’t you?”

Chang stopped scratching and walked – now they weren’t in freefall – to get an espresso, double. “Two reasons. The hit will be at a different, and currently unpredictable place. Even worse, the impact of a much faster hit will be much worse because an insignificant fraction will be abraded by atmospheric friction.”

“Upsetting fact number three is eluding you, Chang, isn’t it?”

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His eyebrows knitted. He looked at the enlarged image of Defoe. He sucked in the lightly metallic air sharply as he saw the blue and white Earth. The cabin shook again – deceleration – but the rock rushed on. Only one reason why it could accelerate like that, unnaturally.

Chang turned to Wen. “I assume this isn’t another of your tricks?”

She shook her head in silence, for once.

He threw his arms wide. “Then the asteroid really is an alien artefact.”

Wen gave him a small, embarrassed, smile. “Or, it is an alien.”

Another hour and Wutang had a new best guess of the

target.

Wen shouted at Chang, “It’s the Gobi Desert.”

“I bet your DragonSlayer pals are rubbing their hands – or are they in Gobi?”

“I’m just saying it could be much worse.”

He grudgingly had to admit that was true, and yet. “It could also have been much better if you’d not sabo–” “Not that again, Chang. Uh oh, here we go. Look at that firework! Like a silver Jian sword stabbing through the night sky, but no, the atmosphere has a cherry glow spreading from the wound. Just look at the speed of that circular wave in the upper air. Can you see anything of the hit on the ground?”

He couldn’t. It was night and the air turbulence obscured everything. Wutang was transmitting. “...thought would be contained, but by a terrible 85

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coincidence Defoe struck where three tectonic plates meet. It hit at right angles and disappeared. Either vaporised or shot into the desert out of sight. Tremors in the local towns.

Ongoing strong quakes at the nearest big city, Urumqi.

Reports coming in of quakes in Japan, New Guinea... just a minute... must confirm this... San Fransisco... Mexico City... Istanbul... too many to... this is awful. So sorry.

We... we are having an earthquake.”

Chang looked at Wen, both in shock, as they orbited the Earth coming apart at the plate boundaries, lit by lava.

“No need for them to practice, Wen. First and last contact.”

Geoff Nelder has a wife, two grown-up kids, an increasing number of grandkids, and lives in rural England within an easy cycle ride of the Welsh mountains. He taught Geography and Information Technology for years until writing took over his life.

Geoff is a competition short-fiction judge, and a freelance editor.

Publications include several non-fiction books on climate reflecting his other persona as a Fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society; over 50 published short stories in various magazines and anthologies; thriller, humour, science fiction, and fantasy novels.

2005: Humorous thriller Escaping Reality. Republished 2013.

2008: Award-winning science fiction mystery with hot-blooded heroine, Exit, Pursued by a Bee. 2010: Another thriller received an Award d’Or from an Arts Academy in the Netherlands. Hot Air. Republished 2012.

2012: ARIA: Left Luggage science fiction apocalypse. Voted Best science fiction novel of 2012 at the P&E Readers’ Poll.

Geoff’s website: geoffnelder.com Blog: geoffnelder.wordpress.com

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THE BORGIA KISS

by Kurt Heinrich Hyatt

The sensation was much like rising from deep water,

sunlight on the surface coming closer, brighter. Floating upwards toward the light. Then intrusion of sharp hospital odors; disinfectant, bleached linens, newly waxed linoleum. And from an enveloping fog came voices.

“Doris, I’m really sorry about last night. I… I think I just had too much to drink.”

“Don’t worry about it, Bob. It happens more when you get elderly.”

“Elderly? I feel entitled to point out you’re no spring chicken yourself, Nurse Gomez.”

“So I’m Nurse Gomez now. Okay, Doctor Bell, would you care to take a look at your new patient, Valery Dann?”

“Let me see her chart. I take it the search party removed all the bodies from the crash site on Swampworld?”

Memories floated from the fog. The crippled starliner leaving a fiery trail through the atmosphere. Impact in the jungle below, flames and screaming passengers. Falling from a broken wing into a pool of stinking swamp water, floundering in green mud.

“The snakeoids didn’t leave much after they finished feeding. Family members were warned not to open the caskets.”

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“Yes, I’ve been to the morgue. It’s probably what saved her life, being trapped up to her neck in swamp water. No heat signature for the snakeoids to home in on.”

“Blood tests came back from the lab, Doctor. I think you should see them.”

“Oh my, not good. I hope this isn’t what I think it is.”

The fog rolled in. Drifting her into a timeless void.

Drifting…

The view from the window was spectacular. The twin

suns of New Mars shone down on the city below, lines of speeding aircars winding between tall office spirals, the lush green rectangle of Buzz Aldrin Park nestled by a tiny lakelet.

A private room, no less. Valery frowned. With her company insurance becoming more parsimonious each year? She was sitting up in bed, the remains of a breakfast tray on a table beside her. Behind a long glass window a constant stream of white­clad orderlies, nurses and doctors hurried past.

The door opened and a gloved and masked nurse bustled in. “There you are, Ms. Dann,” she said. The eyes above the surgical mask exuded cheer. “How are we doing this morning?”

Valery considered the question. “Actually I feel great.

How long have I been enjoying your hospitality?”

“About five days.” The nurse ran a scanner across her chest and checked readouts on the stasis board above the bed. “I’m glad you enjoyed your breakfast. Doctor Bell will be in to see you shortly.”

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“So when can I leave?”

“Doctor Bell will be discussing that with you.” The eyes above the mask looked troubled, then brightened. “My goodness, it would seem you have a visitor.”

A tall blonde in an executive jumpsuit stood outside the window. He smiled, holding up a bouquet of flowers.

“Steve!” cried Valery happily. “There’s my boyfriend.

Can he come in?”

“Not quite yet, Doctor’s orders.” The nurse seemed flustered and turned to gather up the breakfast tray.

“Doctor’s orders? Why?” “He’ll be talking to you about that shortly, Ms. Dann.”

Behind the glass Steve smiled and blew her a kiss.

“Why does everyone keep asking me how I’m feeling?

I usually feel with my hands and sometimes my feet.”

Valery was sitting on the edge of the bed wearing the standard peekaboo hospital gown. The boredom of the long wait to see the doctor now perched on a chair across from her was raising her level of irritation. She noticed with a nameless whisper of dread he was wearing surgical gloves and mask.

“It’s just one of the usual pleasantries this hospital requires us to use,” Doctor Bell replied affably. “Informing our patients they look like something the cat dragged in sometimes interferes with their recovery.”

“Is this an attempt at humor?” she asked acidly. “Well, have I recovered to the point where I can find some clothes and get back to my life?”

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“Which is something we need to discuss.” The eyes over the mask held her with a level stare. “We haven’t finalized all our tests yet and recommend you remain here for observation.”

“Tests for what?” Valery sensed something bad was coming her way. She wished he would remove the mask so she could read the message on his face.

“We think you may have the hydrophis virus.”

“The what?”

A nasty little bug we see a few people picking up on Swampworld. It’s a type of blood disease, very little of which we understand.”

Valery felt a chill gather about her heart. “But I feel great. Actually more than great.”

“I’m sure you do” he agreed. “You’re just a carrier. What the hydrophis virus does is release a class M neurotoxin into all the host’s body fluids. A toxin powerful enough to kill in seconds.”

“But I feel fine,” Valery protested. “Look, Doctor Bell, I just want to go home.”

“We’re hoping the final tests come back negative, Ms. Dann. But if they don’t…”

“Well, what if they don’t?”

Doctor Bell drummed his fingers on the armrest of the chair. “In the event of a positive report we encourage the infected person to enter the treatment facility on Asteroid IXV.” Valery fought down panic. “But what if I… the infected person refuses to go?”

“Entry into the treatment center is voluntary, of course.”

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Doctor Bell’s sigh of regret was muffled by the mask.

“Unfortunately, at this time the hospital, under the Alien Disease and Infections Protocol, is required to inform all persons who may come in contact with this individual of the potential hazards.”

This last statement hung in the air like a scalpel. Valery slipped off the bed and stood up. “Doctor Bell, would you be so good as to contact my boyfriend to pick me up. And some clothes and shoes close to my size would be nice.”

“Very well,” he shrugged. “In the meantime I strongly recommend you avoid physical contact with him.”

At this moment the one thing Valery desired was to be enveloped in Steve’s strong and protective arms and to feel his lips on hers. She looked questioningly at him.

“What kinds of physical contact to avoid?”

“All physical contact.”

Steve’s aircar lifted from the hospital flight deck and

swooped down into the stream of commuters on the Western Flyway. He handled his craft the way he made love, Valery thought in the seat beside him. Smoothly, with an expert touch on the controls.

“You’ve been quiet as a falmouse since I picked you up at the hospital, hon,” he said, glancing over at her. “It must have been quite an ordeal for you on Swampworld. I saw your picture on the Interworld News.”

“Uh huh. I saw it on on my room viscreen,” she replied.

“Maybe I’ll become become rich and famous.”

He smiled. “Are we heading to my place for the night?”

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Valery winced inwardly, clenching her fists. “It might be best if you’d just drop me off at my apartment.”

“Huh?” He looked startled.

“They’re still running some tests on me.”

“Tests for what?”

“Doctor Bell thinks…” She swallowed hard. “I might have the hydrophis virus.”

“Holy shit!” The craft inadvertently dropped, causing a warning siren and forcing another aircar below to swerve and avoid a collision.

“Obviously you’ve heard about it.”

“Yeah, I have.’ He leaned forward, gripping the control knob tightly. “Very rare and incurable. The Homeworld has an isolation facility on Asteroid IXV.” He made a wry face. “I hear it’s like an Old Earth leper colony.”

Valery placed a hand on his arm. “What if the tests come back positive?”

He looked over at her, managing a weak smile. “I’m sure it will all turn out fine, hon. Yeah, not to worry.”

She stood before the slidedoor to her apartment on the ninety­first floor of the Yuri Gargarin Building, rummaging through her purse for her passcard. It was the only item of hers the rescue team had salvaged from the wreck of the starliner and it still felt damp and smelled faintly of jungle plants.

“Nice to see you again, Ms. Dann,” said a voice behind her.

She turned to see Jinghua, her neighbor across the hall.

There was always something about Jinghua which made Valery uneasy. Perhaps it was the tight black bodysuit she

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always seemed to wear, or the reptilian glint in her obsidian dark eyes.

“Yeah, thanks.”

“How are you feeling?”

“You know, everyone asks me that and the answer is just peachy.” She fished the passcard from her purse.

“Well, I gotta get ready for work tomorrow.”

“I would think you might wish to take it easy for a few days.” Jinghua’s voice was like a snake gliding over dry grass.

“I feel like I’ve been taking it easy in the hospital for a year,” she replied, jamming the passcard into the door slot. “Now I need to get back to my life.”

The cake was a masterpiece of sugared art. The little

plastic girl in the starliner uniform floated in a swamp of green icing surrounded by a menacing circle of candy snakeoids.

“Welcome back, Val!” The crowd of pilots, flight attendants and baggage clerks chorused as she entered the employee lounge from the arrivals tube.

“Guys, you really shouldn’t have,” she beamed at them, dropping her flight bag.

“We know,” a second shift navigator grinned. “Any idea of how hard we had to work covering your butt while you lounged about in the hospital?”

“Well, go ahead and cut the cake,” ordered a pilot, handing her a knife and a stack of plates. “I see you made it back from the cargo run to Lexan without navigating the ship into the ground like you did on Swampworld.”

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“Pretty harsh remark from someone who forgot to extend the landing struts before touchdown on Parsus IV, Mr. Grete,” Valery smirked, stabbing the knife into the cake. “Who wants one of the candy snakeoids?”

“Attention!” a voice barked from an overhead speaker.

“Would Navigator Valery Dann please report to Ms. Lizardo’s office.”

“Hey, Lizardlips wants to award the raise Dann’s been whining for all season,” Grete exclaimed.

“Only in your dreams, Phil,” Valery smirked, pushing a plateful of cake into his hands.

Ms. Lizardo looked bleakly over the top of the folder,

clearing her throat. “I’m sorry, Ms. Dann, but I’m afraid it’s company policy.”

“Two weeks’ notice!” Valery stared across the ornate desk cluttered with commdiscs, reports and scattered memo tabs. “But I have seniority here at Pan Galaxy with eight years of service.”

“New Mars is a Right to Work planet. Seniority or years of service are not applicable here.”

“But two weeks’ notice­.”

“Interstellar travel has been down due to the rebellion in Zabo’s Belt, you know.” She seemed unable to look Valery directly in the face. She chewed nervously on her lower lip. “I see you’ve been reassigned shuttle duty to a Mr. Vox on Planet Euphoria.”

“Not Big Vox?” Valery exclaimed, her voice tight with outrage. “He’s one of the most notorious druglords in the quadrant. Folsox, dhungweed, moondust, you name it!”

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Ms. Lizardo dropped the folder onto her desk with an air of finality. “I’m very sorry, Ms. Dann. But that’s the way it is.”

The first sight to greet Valery on her return to her

apartment that evening was rain beating on the front room window, perfectly matching her mood. She trudged over to check the messages on her autotalk, the flight bag over her shoulder feeling like a lead weight.

“Good evening, Valery,” a disgustingly cheerful voice announced as the wall viscreen came to life. “You have two new messages!”

“Greetings from United Mediscam, your insurance healthcare provider,” came from a grimly smiling woman in an executive jumpsuit. “The initial bill for your five day stay in New Mars General Hospital has been processed at United Mediscam. Medications, tests and doctor consultations have been covered under your usual eighty­five per cent copay. Items not covered under your existing plan is the private room required by the hospital, air ambulance transportation, bed linen, towels, shower water and miscellaneous toiletries. Please submit your balance of eight thousand, four hundred creds before the end of the month. Thank you for being a member of United Mediscam, your partner in Heath security.”

Valery let her flight bag drop to the carpet. She was looking around for the nearest seat to collapse into when another face popped onto the viscreen. It was Ms. Sanchez, the apartment manager.

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“Hi Valery, how are you?” The welcoming smile looked frayed. “I’m so sorry to have to give you notice of termination of your lease. You’ve been a great tenant and we at Uri Gagarin will certainly miss you. A copy of the Hazardous Tenant Act will be included with your deposit refund. Best of luck.”

The viscreen went blank.

Valery stood transfixed before the rain streaked window. So this was why she lost her job at Pan Galaxy, she realized with a shock. Doctor Bell must have notified all her business and personal contacts under… what did he call it? The Alien Disease and Infection Protocol. But she didn’t have, couldn’t have the hydrophis virus. She felt great!

Frantically she dialed Steve’s number on the autotalk.

She could hear the signal buzzing on the speakers, over and over then a mechanical voice.

“I’m sorry, the person you are attempting to contact is not available.”

Never in her life had she felt so abandoned. She fought down a wave of panic and forced herself to think. Steve was probably out with a client and had forgot his palmreader. She had a passcard to his suite and the citywide transit tube was on roof level three. She grabbed her purse and fled the apartment.

The rain had increased, slanting past the lightglobes lining the roof. Rows of glistening aircars dripped water onto the polyasphalt, black rain­spotted puddles collecting in the gutters.

She had reached the overhang leading to the transit tube when a sleek aircar swooped down, settling with a 96

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descending whine of turbines. The hatch opened and Jinghua emerged. She spotted Valery and walked over.

“You know, there have been two rapes, five muggings and two murders at this level this time of night,” she observed.

Valery pulled the collar of her jumpsuit tighter as a trickle of icy rainwater ran down her back. “Well, I didn’t do them,” she retorted, scanning the transit departure schedule on the wall. “The rapes, anyway.”

“You seem upset.”

“Life has never been better for me, really.” She looked into black eyes, unblinking and reflecting glints from the overhead podlights.

“Can I give you a lift?”

“Well… perhaps you could­.”

Two shadows emerged from the night. Valery felt a forearm encircle her throat from behind, choking her. She struggled, clawing for air.

“You take the chinkette, Radnor, I’ll have this little blonde. Damn, she’s a fighter!”

Valery tore at the muscular arm choking her, flashes of red before her vision. In desperation she forced her chin down and sank her teeth into the man’s forearm.

Suddenly she was alone on her hands and knees on the wet deck. Coughing, she looked up to see her assailant lying face down beside her. With disbelief she watched Jinghua calmly thrust a knife into the belly of the second assailant and jerk it upwards, disemboweling him.

Then she strolled over to the body beside Valery, turning it over. Blank, staring eyes looked upwards into nothing. “Zog’s Ass, he’s dead as a smelt,” she observed, 97

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wiping her blade clean on his shirt. “What did you do to him?”

“Nothing! He just grabbed me from behind and I…” She gasped, suddenly knowing why he died.

Several shadows were closing in from the dark recesses of the garage.

“Oh oh. Looks like their friends have arrived,” said Jinghua. She helped Valery to her feet and led her to her aircar. “Get in,” she ordered, opening the hatch.

The rundown little bar was on the lowest level of the

city, its clientele mostly dockloaders, starfreighter crewmen and assorted characters who seemed to have no obvious means of employment.

From a dim alcove Valery tossed down her third Faux Manhattan with a shaking hand. She looked across the table where Jinghua was studying her with a fixed feline stare. “Shouldn’t we be calling the Peace Force about what happened at the garage?” she demanded.

“Why? They find dead muggers all the time, smart not to get involved,” Jinghua replied slowly, as if explaining to a child. “Do you want to lose your job?”

Valery snorted. “Funny you should bring that up, I just did.”

“You did?”

“For the next two weeks until my termination date I’ll be navigator on the shuttle of some dirtbag druglord named Big Vox.” “Mr. Vox. Yes, the name does sound familiar.” Jinghua lifted a carafe from the battered table and refilled their 98

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glasses. “So tell me how your mugger died.” Her eyes bored relentlessly into Valery’s.

“I suppose by now everyone on the planet must have heard. I have the hydrophis virus.”

“Ah yes,” Jinghua nodded. “The ‘kiss of death’.”

“Would you like one?” Valery suggested bitterly. She took another deep swallow, coughed. She was vaguely aware she had far exceeded her limit and her vision was starting to blur. “And wash with the knife you’re packing.

Thash illegal, you know.”

“Because what I do is illegal. I’m a contractor for the Borgia Guild.”

“Great. You kill people for a living.”

“I prefer to regard it as the removal of unpleasant obstacles in other people’s lives.” She took a slow sip from her glass. “In fact, since you’re soon to be unemployed, we may have a job for you.”

Valery blinked. “Exshush me?”

“We could use a woman of your talents in the Guild.

Beautiful, but capable of causing instant death from the neurotoxins in a kiss.”

“Funny. You’re trying to be funny.”

“The pay is more than good, as is the health insurance.”

“Forget it.”

Jinghua leaned back in her seat, pushing her long hair from her face. “You mentioned your last assignment will be as navigator to a shuttle assigned to Big Vox?” “Dirtbag druglord taxi driver. Thash what I’ve come to.”

She watched the rain streaming down the windows at the entrance to the bar.

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Jinghua regarded her with sympathy. “Yes, that’s sadly true but Mr. Vox and I go back a long way to the time we were friends. Would it be too much of an imposition for you to deliver a little personal note from me?”

“Shure, no problem.” The room tilted sideways. “But now… I shink I have to go home.”

“This is United Mediscam with another billing update,”

announced the tight­lipped clerk in hospital scrubs from the wall viscreen. Valery leaned against the entertainment cabinet and watched stolidly. A dressing gown hung over her shoulders and a trail of discarded clothing led from the front door.

“Additional charges incurred by your recent stay in New Mars General Hospital not covered by our premium insurance plan come to three thousand, eight hundred creds for tests involving bone density, glaucoma, blood sugar and latent megalomania. In our continuing quest to provide quality health services at the lowest cost we have adjusted your premiums twenty percent upward in order for us to offer you an incredible six percent discount on pediatric examinations. Have a wonderful United Mediscam day!”

“This is all the bad news I can handle for today,” Valery moaned, wilting against the cabinet. She was wrong. A familiar face flashed onto the viscreen.

“Hi sweetheart, it’s me, Steve. Sorry to record this message on your autotalk but I have to leave town on business for the next few days… um, weeks.” His toothy smile reminded her of the salesman who had sold her the 100

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aircar which blew all the gravitors a block from the sales lot. “I’ll call you when I get back. Bye!” Before the image faded from the screen she noticed a woman’s nightdress hanging over the back of his chair. It wasn’t her size, color choice or style. In short, it wasn’t hers.

The shuttle circled the pad and gently touched down

on the penthouse roof. Below stretched the city of Methtropolis, a carpet of lights stretching to the horizon.

“Really nice approach vectoring, Dann,” the pilot grinned. “So glad you didn’t have me auger in like you did on­.”

“Just park it while you still have lips, Bill,” Valery retorted. The lingering hangover from the previous night was giving her a world­class headache.

“I suppose it would be too much to ask for the big jerkoff to be ready and waiting for us,” he remarked, peering out the cockpit at the empty roof.

“I’ll go get him. I need some fresh air, anyway.” She had no sooner climbed down from the shuttle when a giant hulk emerged from the darkness.

“What you do here?” the hulk demanded in a bass voice. “Oaff need see you invite to party.”

“Sorry, I forgot to check my morning mail,” she replied.

“I’m part of the shuttle crew here to take Mr. Vox to his meeting in Cannibis City.”

“Ah, you here for Big Vox, my boss. I take you.”

He led her through the foyer into a huge room where a riotous party was in full swing. Music from Oron 101

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basshorns vibrated the air filled with dhungsmoke while couples necked on sofas or gyrated on a raised dance floor. Stepping over a drunk passed out at the foot of a spiral staircase they climbed upwards to a door at the top.

A long moment after the hulk pressed the entry chime the door slid open revealing a wizened dwarf in a pink bathrobe. Draped over the dwarf’s shoulder was a pneumatic blonde wearing a miniskirt sized for an eight year old girl.

“Hey, sugarbowls, welcome to the party!” exclaimed the dwarf. “Zog, the escort service sent me a real fox this time. Wanna snort of Banzai or a hit of Moondust before we start?”

Valery felt his little eyes slide over the curves of her body. “Um, you’re Big Vox?” she blurted. “I mean, Mr. Vox?” “Hey, size only matters in bed. How about a pipeful of dhung, then?”

“Sorry sir, I’m with the shuttle crew to take you to your meeting.”

“Oh yeah, the meeting with the boys from Sector XII to discuss neovalium production, almost forgot.”

Valery suddenly remembered the message Jinghua had given her. She pulled a crumpled envelope from her flight jacket and held it out.

“Your old friend Jingqua asked me to give you this.”

Vox’s eyebrows contracted in thought. “Old friend Jingqua? Never heard of the spacer.” He grabbed the envelope, tore it open and scanned the note inside.

Abruptly his pink jowls darkened and the little porcine eyes blazed up at her.

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“Grab her, Oaff!” he barked.

Huge paws gripped her from behind, pinning her arms to her sides. Vox pulled a force pistol from under his bathrobe, shoving it under her chin.

Oh Yeah?” he sneered, “You got less than five seconds to live, wedge!”

Valery struggled against the animal strength holding her helpless, the pain of the weapon pressing into her larynx. In an act of either desperation or instinct she leaned forward and spat into Vox’s upturned face.

With a guttural scream he lunged backwards and fell to the carpet, squirming. Then he lay still.

Oaff released her and knelt beside him, turning him over. Blank, lifeless eyes seemed to stare upwards at a crystal chandelier high overhead.

“What happen Big Vox?” He scratched the top of his massive head. “He no breathe, he no talk. Me think boss go bye­bye.”

Valery sucked air into her lungs, sagging against the doorway. The note Vox had dropped caught her eye.

Picking it up she read the neatly handwritten lines. You are looking at an assassin from the Borgia Guild, Vox. You have five seconds left to live.

“Sonofabitch!” she hissed, crumpling it up.

The pneumatic blonde peered down at the sprawled body. She looked wistfully at Valery. “I guess this means the party is over, huh?”

Valery tilted her head, examining herself in her

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force pistol was a dark oval. Perhaps a little face cream would help, she thought. Her hands still shook when she recalled the scene at the party. The Methtropolis Police had performed a perfunctory interrogation of all partygoers who failed to escape through various doors and windows after learning about Big Vox’s untimely demise. It would seem he wasn’t a particularly loved man.

The official conclusion­ so far­ seemed to indicate he died of a heart seizure caused by excessive drug use.

The sound of chimes came from the doorway. To her shock the door hissed open revealing Jinghua standing before her.

She looked into the black feline eyes and felt rage building up inside her.

“I can’t believe you had the nerve to show up on my doorstep,” she snarled.

“And good evening to you also,” Jinghua replied with a pale smile. “Do we have time to talk?”

“Yeah, we unemployed people have plenty of time to talk.” Then she shrugged, indicating the living room chairs. “Well, why not, take a pew. I’m dying to hear the explanation for the slimy little trick you played on me today.”

They settled into chairs, Jinghua dropping a black carryall onto the table before them. “Explain what you mean by unemployed?” she asked.

“Unpaid administrative leave, per company policy, until the inquiry over Big Vox’s death is concluded. I’m sure you know how he died.”

Jingqua nodded. “Quite. But that won’t be a problem for you.”

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Perversely, Valery felt like laughing. “No, he didn’t die from ingesting a class M neurotoxin someone spat into his eyes. He choked to death on a bread crumb.”

“I’ve been doing a little research on your condition,” Jingqua continued. “It would seem the venom from the hydrophis virus becomes inert soon after it enters the victim’s body. The symptoms and result are indeed identical to heart seizure.”

“In that case, be sure not to borrow my toothbrush.”

Jingqua opened the carryall and began stacking up one hundred cred plasticards.

“What exactly are you doing?” Valery demanded.

“A rival drug cartel contacted the Borgia Guild last week to eliminate Big Vox. Since you’ve completed the contract for us, here is your share. Twenty thousand creds.”

Valery gaped at the pile of plasticards and swallowed.

“You have to be kidding,” she managed to whisper.

“We would very much enjoy having an associate with your talent in the Guild,” Jingqua continued smoothly. “In fact we have a contract which just came in from a wife which would love having her wealthy and cheating husband expire to, how shall we say… something like a heart attack?”

With an effort Valery forced her eyes from the stacked creds and back to reality. “I somehow can’t picture myself as a hired assassin. I’m a Certified Starship Navigator, for crying out loud. That’s who I am!”

There was a glass vase on the table holding a spray of crystal butterflies. Jingqua picked one up, turning it over in her hand.

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“This butterfly reminds me of something they salvaged from the wreck on Swampworld. A porcelain antique vase from Solitaire, unscathed among the wreckage,” she said, gazing at Valery with a trace of compassion which sat strangely on her hard yet lovely face. “I think it’s time you think about what you can salvage from the wreckage of your life.”

“I suppose that’s one way of looking at it.” Valery rummaged mentally through her file of options, more unsettled by Jingqua’s analogy than she chose to admit. “I can always find another job. And the hydrophis virus, I’m sure in time they’ll find a cure.”

“Perhaps they will.” Jingqua shrugged and returned the butterfly to the vase. “Well, if you change your mind, there is a sizable contract fee on this individual at United Mediscam.”

“What did you say? Who?” “The CEO of Accounting, a former corporate tax evasion specialist named Bob Weimer.” She raised an eyebrow and looked steadily at Valery. “Don’t tell me you are acquainted with him?”

“The company name does ring a bell in my pocketbook.” She picked up one of the creds, savoring the smooth finish and the gold 100 embossed in the center.

She pursed her lips thoughtfully. “Chief CEO of accounting, huh? How interesting.”

He was definitely making progress. The little blonde in

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hotel lounge swirled about them; secretaries just getting off work, business travelers and execs ordering the first martini of the night.

“Of course, getting a corporate bonus isn’t easy these days,” he said, taking a sip of his Aghaid Fizz. “I had to raise the copays and bump up the deductions of our policyholders. But I landed a thirty million cred profit for United Mediscam this past quarter.”

“That’s wonderful, Bob,” said Valery, leaning closer so he could get a better look at her cleavage. “Tell me more about your new Porsche aircar.”

“Well, it’s not the top of the line Model J5, but it has targhide upholstery, hologram navigation and can top out at two hundred KPH.” Weimer managed to lift his eyes from the depths of her bosom to an inviting smile. Based on past experience of similar encounters he sensed the timing was right for a familiar line. “Say, maybe you’d like me to take you for a spin? We could even stop by one of my penthouse suites for a nightcap.”

“I’d love to, Bob,” Valery cooed, sliding her hand along his leg. “And I can guarantee you a goodnight kiss.”

Kurt Heinrich Hyatt has appeared in Encounters before with “All That Glitters” in issue #05 and has also had science fiction stories accepted by Space and Time, Allegory and Jupiter Science Fiction, among others.

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CORRECTION PROTOCOL

by Edward J. McFadden III

The hoverbus banked left, following the old highway as

it twisted its way toward the burbs 300 feet below. Dots moved on the road, which still handled minimal motor vehicle traffic, as well as cycles, bikes, motorized rickshaws, and crowds of walkers. In the distance, spires of new and old buildings could be seen, the sleekness of the nano fabricated buildings standing in sharp contrast to the steel, brick, and mortar structures that were crumbling.

Seth had been at the new courthouse all day, and thankfully he didn’t have to go back tomorrow. He had been scanned and assigned to a jury pool, but the defendant had arranged for a plea, so he and forty­nine others were released with “served” recorded on their IDs, and wouldn’t have to report again for three years.

Since the Responsible Crime Act of 2036, the government had taken jury service to a whole new level.

With citizen arrests way up due to the new laws that effectively made every citizen without a criminal record a law enforcement officer, the court system had been stretched beyond anything imaginable. And of course the politicians couldn’t admit they had made a mistake because all the data showed they hadn’t. The new system was working, and murders and other violent crimes had fallen way down, but trials were up. Ninety­five percent of the US legal population performed jury service once 108

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every three years. There was no more skating, unless you were really important.

The other way they had encouraged the general populace not to revolt was the lottery. Everyone who served got a number, and once a week the president pulled a number randomly, and awarded that person 10 million dollars. Hardly a fortune in 2049, but it wasn’t poverty either.

The hoverbus touched down atop the Evans Street stop, and people began exiting and working their way down the large spiral staircase to ground level. Seth was looking forward to getting home early, because he rarely got home before dark.

He walked the six blocks from the lift station to his house, where he arrived to find his friend Joey’s blue motorcycle resting on its kickstand in the middle of his walkway. He inched around it, and slipped in the front door. He hadn’t told Tabitha he had jury duty. She thought he was at work. Joey and Tabitha’s conversation floated into the living room from the kitchen.

“Yeah, isn’t it hot,” said Tabitha, and he heard the scuffling of feet.

“Ummm hummm,” said Joey, and Seth couldn’t take it anymore. He burst into the kitchen to find Tabitha and Joey staring at a new clock on the kitchen wall. A cuckoo clock hung where a picture of Seth and his father had been only that morning.

“Hey,” said Tabitha, and walked over to kiss him.

“Whassup?” said Joey, trying to do his stupid handshake. Joey was talking, but Seth couldn’t hear him.

Everything was an echo, and he stared at the new clock. It 109

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was made of a fine wood, and had vines and leaves carved into its top arch, with finely decorated finials on the bottom. When the doors on the front of the clock opened, and a bird bolted out, and shouted “Cuckoo,” Seth’s nerves frayed even further. The tiny bird shouted four times, then turned, and darted back through the doors before they slammed shut.

Seth’s mind swam, and for an instant he was back in line at the courthouse, the large security scanner looming in the fluorescent light before him. His stomach churned, and he felt an incredible urge to turn and run. Instead, he strode forward, unable to stop himself, but this time he didn’t simply step through the scanner. Now the scanner stretched into the distance, and a series of arms, needles, and cameras pricked and prodded him as he crept forward on a sliding floor.

“Honey,” said Tabitha, as she knelt over him, wiping his brow with a wet cloth. Joey stood behind her, looking concerned. “You all right? You just dropped.”

“Jerky, why are you here?” asked Seth.

Joey chuckled nervously. He didn’t like it when people called him by his nickname. “Your wife saw me riding up the road and flagged me down. Asked me to hang that thing for her so you didn’t have to when you got home.”

“Speaking of which,” said Tabitha. “Why are you home so early?” Something in the tone of her voice told Seth she knew exactly where he’d been.

“I had jury today. I told you that,” said Seth, as he got to his feet. Tabitha tried to look perplexed, failed, and then smiled. It took some time for Seth to awake from his daze, and Tabitha and Joey waited patiently while he 110

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shook the cobwebs from his head.

Seth jumped when the cuckoo came bursting from its house, cawing his way to five o’clock, and then scurrying away. Did he see something in the cuckoo’s eyes?

Seth smiled at Joey, and said, “Thanks buddy.”

“I’m telling you, Tab, it was more than just a dream,”

said Seth, as he lay in bed next to his wife. Moonlight and a light breeze streamed through an open window, and the sounds of the world shutting down for the day filled the room.

“Whatever,” said Tabitha. Seth had told her about his vision, about how they had done something to him while he was serving jury duty, but she only smiled, indulging his paranoid thoughts, but not trying very hard to convince him she believed a word he had said.

“It was so vivid, like I was there again,” he said, almost pleading for her to believe him.

“Very normal. You had an experience outside your normal routine, so it only makes sense that you would dream about it,” she said, her eyes never leaving her data pad.

Seth didn’t know what made him more angry: the fact that she thought he was acting a like a child, or that the government had messed with his brain without his knowledge or permission. Unable to sleep, he went down to the kitchen for a drink, and the cuckoo clock stared at him in the grayness. It read 2:40AM, so he wouldn’t see his new friend if he hurried. He opened the fridge and reached for a beer, but suddenly the thought of drinking it 111

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repulsed him, and he put it back. He used to love beer.

Seth was finishing his milk, and rinsing the glass, when the doors of the clock flew open, and the bird came storming out. “Cuckoo. Cuckoo. Cuckoo.” When the bird was done, it turned and headed back into its house, but before the doors shut, Seth was falling again, his mind jerking him back to the prior day.

He lay on a table covered with a white sheet, and three robots stood around him. Not the new technobots that looked human and were capable of performing many human tasks, but the older, stationary bots that had evolved from the automated machines of the early 20 th century, the type that built cars and the like.

The bots were operating a scan machine. Seth had something attached to his head, and wires ran down the length of the table. When he turned his head to one side, he saw row upon row of people like him, robots hovering around them as well.

“Any problems,” a human voice said to his left, but when he turned to see the person’s face, he was jerked back into position by the steel claw of one of the bots.

“Nothing major on this one, sir,” whined the bot.

“Standard correction protocol inserted. Wish we could do it on the line. Bringing them in here is a pain in the heel.”

“Law is the law. Only medical scans, psychology evals, and criminal thought probes can be done on the line. You know that. Everything else must be supervised,” said the human voice.

The bot continued its work, and the last thing Seth heard as he tumbled back to consciousness, was the whirring of a drill, and in his mind, he screamed.

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Seth woke up sitting on the kitchen floor in the same spot he’d fallen the prior afternoon. He looked up at the clock, and to his surprise the bird was perched at the end of its ramp, looking down its pointed nose at him. Seth heard the faint sound of servo motors, and he saw the cuckoo’s eyes telescope outward. Seth’s vision grew blurry, and he blinked. Then the bird turned, and headed back into its house without making a sound. Seth could still smell the faint aroma of Joey’s obnoxious cologne.

The clock read 3:51AM.

When he arrived at work the next day, he hoped the

previous day’s follies were behind him, but he didn’t feel right. When his boss Rose had stopped by to give her daily berating, he didn’t get angry at all. In fact, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t summon his hatred for her, and when she was done telling him how much work he had missed the prior day while serving jury duty, he smiled and said have a nice day. She gave him an unnerving, knowing smile that made his breakfast rumble in his stomach.

The day only got worse. He had a staff meeting scheduled for after lunch during which he intended to rip his people, as Rose had ripped him. The gravity of shit was still forced downward, even in 2049, but he was unable to summon even the faintest anger, and when he left the room, he was convinced something was wrong with him.

He retreated to his office, a monster headache incapacitating him. Looking out his window, he saw a city 113

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that wasn’t new, but wasn’t old either. New nano built structures of amazing breadth and scope dotted the horizon, interspersed with old, crumbling buildings the government had scheduled for demolition. Smog still hung like a blanket over the city, despite the presence of huge oxygen scrubbers that adorned all the new buildings.

He rubbed his temples, his mind flashing back to the courthouse. He felt a sudden urge to go back there and demand to know what they had done to him. Then the flashback from the prior night spun through his mind like a whirlwind, and he remembered the correction protocol and the cuckoo’s eyes.

His door fell back on its hinges and Rose stood there, her long black hair hanging to her butt, her makeup over applied. “Have you seen this!” she ranted. It was the monthly sales figures, for which he was responsible. “You better get your head out of your ass, and soon!” she shouted, tossing the report on his desk as she left.

“Thank you,” said Seth. A pain shot through his head.

He felt a sudden burst of anger break through, and he smiled. “Screw you, bitch,” he yelled at the closed door, and then held his breath, hoping she hadn’t heard him.

The rest of the day he spent bitching and yelling at every subordinate he came across, and when he wasn't yelling at someone, he was thinking about Tabitha, and how he could make her life miserable. If she wanted Joey, she could have his unemployed ugly ass.

Seth’s antics had caused a stir, because when he saw Rose later in the day, she looked at him with eyebrows furrowed, and lips curled. By the end of the day, Seth was 114

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feeling himself again. He was the last one to leave, as usual, and as he waited alone for the elevator, a man in a grey uniform he recognized as a court officer fell in quietly beside him.

“Good day,” said the officer, and Seth eyed him suspiciously. In 2049 an actual law enforcement officer never showed up when you needed them, always when you didn’t. Seth nodded, but the man wouldn’t be deterred. “You mind taking a walk with me down to the court house?”

At this Seth took notice. The officer wore a nerve­snarler wand on his belt, and Seth had seen what those things could do. The officer took Seth gently by the arm and eased him through a steel door that read “Emergency Exit.” The door hissed closed behind them, and they stood alone in the emergency stairwell, the gray concrete walls and metal steps lit by glowblocks imbedded in the steel and concrete.

As the officer paused on the landing, and before he could gain leverage on him, Seth fell backward, ramming all his weight into the officer, and slamming him into the concrete wall. The man gasped as the air rushed from his lungs, and Seth pulled free the nerve­snarler wand and spun the cop around, pinning his face to the wall. His twenty years of marital arts training had served him well.

“Release me now and you and I can forget about this,” said the officer, as he struggled to get free, but Seth had the man’s arms twisted behind his back, and as he squirmed to get free, the pain increased. “They’ll put you away for this!”

“Keep moving around and I’ll break an arm,” said Seth, 115

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as he pulled the officer’s data feed from his neck jack.

“What the hell did you guys do to me?”

The officer stopped flailing, and sighed. “After this, they’re gonna wipe you anyway, so it doesn’t matter what I tell you. It’s pointless,” said the officer. Seth applied pressure to the officer’s twisted arms. “Okay. Okay. It doesn’t matter anyway.” They heard a door slam above, and footsteps as someone came down the emergency stairs. Then another door opening and closing, then silence.

“Just the cleaning bot,” said Seth. “Not the cavalry.”

The officer looked confused, and then said, “Look. I don’t even really know your case, other than your correction protocol failed. It happens. They’ll run the new version on you, and everything will be fine. But if you continue doing what you’re doing, things will be much worse.”

Seth tried to digest what he’d been told, but couldn’t.

“What do you mean?” he yelled, pulling on the man’s arms.

“Urggg. They read your mind, your thoughts and dreams. Your hates. I thought people knew that,” he said, looking up at Seth with wrathful eyes. Seth frowned.

Apparently, the government was messing with the minds of the cops also.

Seth swayed on his feet, and the officer almost broke free, but Seth pressed the nerve­snarler against the man’s neck, and pushed his face back into the concrete wall. The wand wouldn’t work for him because it had been imprinted with the officer’s handprint, but it still made a good club. “Why me? What did I do?” asked Seth.

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“Obviously, you were getting a little too uppity, and they don’t like that. Probably had some thoughts of crime, hate crimes and the like. You really pissed at anyone?”

Seth thought of Joey and Tabitha. “So the new crime laws aren’t working. They're freaking brainscrewing us?”

“No, nothing so sinister. Medical and psychological scans are all most people get, but when someone shows anger or hate beyond a certain threshold, they apply a correction. It’s not a big deal. You shouldn’t have even known, and you never would have. You’ve been getting updates since you started jury service when you were eighteen.”

Seth considered this, then said, “I won’t hurt you, and you can tell your boss what you want. I’ll leave your wand under the garbage pail out front of this building where you can find it. Then you’re out of this clean. We never met. Or, you can report what’s happened and…” Seth paused, picking his words carefully as he abandoned his prior thought. “I’m leaving here without you.”

The officer had been held for too long, and he was beginning to stress. “All right,” he said, and Seth cracked the officer on the back of his head, and hurried away down the stairs.

As he exited the building, he hid the wand as promised, and climbed the spiral staircase to the hoverbus platform.

He felt good, and he grabbed a couple of beers from a vendor for the ride. A hoverbus eased to a stop with perfect timing, and he stepped on. There were several people in the bus, most looking at tablets or speaking to holograms. He wondered if any of them knew about what their government did to them, and if any of them had 117

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gotten the correction protocol.

He opened a beer and drank it with one long pull. Seth figured the correction protocol must affect his habits, and he guessed someone didn’t like how much beer he’d been drinking. Screw them, thought Seth, as he opened another beer, and looked out the window at the falling sun as it cut through the smog. He had one piece of business left before he disappeared.

Joey’s motorcycle wasn’t parked on his walk when he arrived home, but he could hear his friend’s voice coming from the kitchen as he entered his house. The foyer and living room looked different, but he couldn’t put his finger on exactly what had changed. A board creaked under foot, and the chatter in the kitchen stopped for an instant.

Seth froze, and the conversation continued.

“Don’t know what will happen. He’s been acting so strange lately. Makes me think some of those crazy stories about jury service are true,” said Tabitha.

“Friend of mine from work found out he had cancer a week after jury service. He got an email for an appointment he hadn’t made.” The voice was Joey’s. “He’s gonna be home. I should scat—” Seth entered the kitchen wearing a thin smile.

“Hey, honey, we just got word. We won the jury service lottery!” said Tabitha, taking a step away from Joey.

“We? I didn’t know you had served,” said Seth, and when he saw the cuckoo clock was gone, he ran.

Edward J. McFadden III juggles a full-time career as a university administrator and teacher, with his writing aspirations. His first novel, a mysterious-dark-thriller called The Black Death of Babylon, is now available from Post Mortem Press, and his second novel,

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Our Dying Land, was released in October. His steampunk fantasy novelette, Starwisps, was recently published in the anthology Fantastic Stories of the Imagination, and was selected for the Tangent 2012 Recommended Reading list. He is the author/editor of: Anywhere But Here, Epitaphs (w/ Tom Piccirilli), Jigsaw Nation, Deconstructing Tolkien: A Fundamental Analysis of The Lord of the Rings (re-released in eBook format Fall 2012), Time Capsule, The Second Coming, Thoughts of Christmas, and The Best of Pirate Writings. He has had more than 50 short stories published in places like Tales of the Talisman, Fantastic Futures 13, From Beyond the Grave, Defending the Future: Dogs of War, Apocalypse 13, Hear Them Roar, CrimeSpree Magazine, Terminal Fright, Cyber-Psycho’s AOD, The And, and The Arizona Literary Review. Over the last seven years he has written six novels, all of which are at various stages of rewriting and submission for publication. He lives on Long Island withm his wife Dawn, their daughter Samantha, and their mutt Oli. See EdwardMcFadden.com for all things Ed.

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Recommended Reading Apocalypse

by Kyle West Alex Keener lives in Bunker 108, one of numerous small pockets of humanity clinging to survival in underground refuges from a world where death awaits those who dare venture above ground.

In 2030 a meteor named Ragnarok smashes into Earth causing global destruction. Following its impact is the spread of an alien organism, the xenovirus, that alters humans and other animals, making them violent killers who can pass along the contagion with direct contact or a single bite.

To make matters worse, there are survivors descended from the ninety­nine percent of the human population left above ground when Ragnarok slammed into the earth. Bunker dwellers refer to them as “Wastelanders” and consider them a barbaric horde just as dangerous as those infected with the xenovirus.

On his sixteenth birthday Alex is picked for his first patrol into the Wasteland surrounding Bunker 108 and it's 120

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that day that sets in motion events that will forever destroy all that Alex has known as home and family.

Apocalypse is the first book in The Wasteland Chronicles and is availble from Amazon.com for free as an introduction to the series if you have a Kindle reader or the Kindle reader software installed on your computer or mobile device.

Other books in the series are: Origins Revelation Evolution Darkness

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The Book List Other books we've received that are also available on the Kindle reader. For more information, sample pages and user reviews, go to Amazon.com.

The World Below Mike Phillips

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Dragon's Dialogue

El Vengador

Anthony Jerome Brown

Stephanie Osborn

Beyond the Tempest Gate

Vegan Zombie Apocalypse

Jeff Suwak

Wol­vriey